Lady Loboes clinch State title in weekend tournament
    by Sara Murphree, Staff Writer ~~ The Monahans News ~~ November 23, 2004

The Lady Loboes are state champions!

The Ladies knocked Pleasant Grove out of the tournament on Friday in a three game sweep.

They took momentum from that win to claim victory over top ranked Barbers Hill, capturing the UIL Class 3A State Championship before 1,743 spectators at Strahan Coliseum on Saturday in San Marcos.

The Lady Loboes have built their volleyball program back to the peak that it has reached only eight times before. The championship tradition has been buried under a sand hill of near misses for 20 year, but the ladies reinvigorated the tradition over the weekend.

Friday afternoon, the Lady Loboes shutout Pleasant Grove, claiming game, set and match in the first round of the state tournament.

The Ladies used their experience from three consecutive state appearances for a 25-19, 25-23, and 15-17 sweep of the third-ranked Pleasant Grove.

The Lady Loboes had 10 blocks and 44 kills, an unusually large number for any three-game with 19 kills.

Brittany Hughes set her personal best for kills in the match with 29 kills.

Pleasant Grove took a simple approach to stop Monahans stop Hughes, and they would stop the whole team.

However, stopping Hughes is a lot easier said then done, especially when she has the strong support from Alison Miller, Catherine Cutbirth and Bailey Marcum on the front row when Hughes is on the back.

Monahans rode strong starts in all three games to seize early control and then overcame a few troublesome spots on the way to victory.

The most evident display of those shills took place in the match, clinching the third game when the Ladies rallied from a 16-12 deficit by scoring 13 of the final 14 points.

"I asked them what Pleasant Grove was doing, and it wasn't that Pleasant Grove was doing anything to us, it was that we were creating the errors," Coach Patty Dominguez said.

Performances from key players like Miller, Cutbirth, Marcum, Bethany Wilmon, Trisha and Diana out the Lady Loboes over the top.

Miller had 10 kills with a .231 hitting percentage.  Cutbirth had four kills and six digs. Wilmon served one ace and came up with 10 digs.

Clements had one set assist four digs and served an ace.  Swarb had 35 set assists, seven digs, and one kill.

We talked a lot early on the season that you can't win the game with one kid," Dominguez said.  "It takes six people on the court, and it takes everybody on the bench to be totally focused on what we're doing so that we can get to where we want to go."

The Ladies' margin would get no less than four points, 22-17, before the Lady Loboes finished the game on two kills from Hughes and Pleasant Grove hitting error.

The Lady Loboes snapped Barbers Hill's 20-match winning streak in the four game match, scoring 25-23, 18-25, 25-23 and 25-23.

"I looked at the scoreboard and it was 23-23, and I was like, 'Whoa, this is what we have been talking about the whole season," Swarb said.

Monahans open with a win in the first game, dropped the second game by a margin of seven points, then won the third game, bringing it all down to a tension filled fourth game.

During the fourth, Monahans trailed 20-16, with Hughes on the back row.  Barbers Hill thought they had the game where they wanted it.  But as has been the case all season, the Lady Loboes proved they were more than a one-person team.

With Swarb serving, the ladies scored four consecutive points to tie the game at 20-20, getting kills from Miller and Marcum and an ace from Swarb.

Wilmon won a joust at the net to give the Lady Loboes a match point.  Ortiz then converted with the second of her aces of the night, setting off a wild celebration on the court and in the stands.

"That last point when the ball hit the floor, I just didn't know what to do.  It was the most amazing feeling," said Hughes who was named the Spalding 3A Championship MVP.

"We didn't want go five games because we all started to gat fatigued, and it only goes to 15 points, so anything could happen.  So we really had to do it that fourth game," Hughes said.

"Because of the fact that I've got Bailey, I've got Catherine and I've got Alison and Bethany, they're on the front row when Brittany's on the back row, you don't count them out," Dominguez said.

"Bailey had a couple of good shots where they weren't even looking for her.  Catherine kept the ball in play.  Alison had a couple of key blocks that we needed.  Those were the kinds of things we were looking for," Dominguez said.

In a match that featured 31 ties and 14 lead changes, those little things proved to be  the difference.

"I just think they were a little bit better than us," Barbers Hill Coach John Leonard said.

"To get beat three games 25-23, it's just the little things here and there.  The unforced errors, the missed serves, and too much Brittany made it close, dang close," Leonard said.  "It's a tough pill to swallow.  We had them where we wanted, and I think we had two or three point lead, but things just didn't go our way."