Lady Cats perfect in district

Staff report

CARLSBAD — With the District 4-6A regular-season volleyball title already secured, it took Clovis High a while to get untracked Thursday night.

It didn’t help that it was Senior Night for the Cavegirls.

“We got warmed up, and then we had to wait,” CHS coach Gabe Apodaca said. “(Senior Night) ended up taking about 20 minutes.

“All our blood went down to our feet. We played the first set like we had concrete shoes.”

No matter. The Lady Cats recovered to post a 22-25, 25-19, 25-16, 25-23 victory and complete a perfect district regular season.

The win also allowed the Lady Cats (10-10, 6-0 district) to reach the .500 mark for the first time since they were 1-1.

“We took the scenic route,” Apodaca quipped.

Senior outside hitter Danni Williams had 14 kills and five aces for the Lady Cats, while senior libero Rylie Lee added 12 digs and senior setter Dakota Grummer collected 27 assists.

Clovis started out a bit flat, Apodaca said, falling behind 6-1 right off the bat. The Lady Cats eventually tied the game, but couldn’t get over the top as they had a number of their 12 service errors in that game.

“Coming in, the girls already understood they had the district (title) in the bag,” Apodaca said. “We tried to come in with the mindset of having a perfect district record.

“We got the game to Danni and (fellow senior) Shaylee (Warner). They had a couple of big plays, but it was hard all night long.”

Apodaca said the Cavegirls (5-14, 3-3), who are second in the four-team district, made CHS play.

“Carlsbad played pretty well,” he said. “They dug a lot of balls against us. We just never seemed to get into a rhythm.”

The Lady Cats will now host the district tournament championship match, set for 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 9 at Rock Staubus Gym. Fourth-seeded Hobbs plays at No. 3 Alamogordo on Tuesday, with that winner traveling to Carlsbad for a semifinal match two nights later.