Ladies Push by Andrews, Take on Lubbock Cooper Tuesday
    By Jon Fulbright, Staffwriter -- November 7, 2006

Monahans Lady Loboes volleyball coach Patty Dominguez said her team had a little first game playoff jitters on Saturday, in their area round match-up against the Andrews Mustangs.

Andrews hung with Monahans for most of the opening game on Saturday at Odessa Permian before the Loboes pulled away at the end for a 25-17 victory.  Things got easier after that, as Monahans went out to 10-point leads midway through both games, on the way to 10-point wins, by 25-15 scores.

The Loboes, who are going for a fifth straight trip to the Region I-3A title game and fourth consecutive trip to the state tournament, advanced to the regional quarterfinals on Tuesday night against Lubbock Cooper.  The match is scheduled for 7:30 pm at Seminole High School.

Despite the numerous recent playoff appearances, Dominguez said, "I think in the first game, it's a matter of any team going to the playoffs, you're going to go into the first one a little uncomfortable.

"We were just a little tense, but this is what we've been waiting for," she said.  "We worked to get into the flow, but our adrenaline was going too much, and we couldn't relax.  We were trying too much to force the issue."

Even with those problems, Monahans trailed only once in the opener, at 1-0, on a spike out by Catherine Cutbirth.  But Andrews hung around, led by Aida Lujan, and the Mustangs would cut a 9-4 Loboes lead down to 12-11, on a spike by Ashlyn Roberts.

But setter Katlin Mithcell was able to catch the Mustangs off-guard with a dink over the front line to break the streak and start a 5-1 Monahans run, capped off by a kill of an overset by Cutbirth.

"We never really got into a rhythm early, except for Catherine Cutbirth," said Dominguez.  "For a while, she was the only one coming through with big plays.  The others weren't."

Andrews was still within 20-17 when the Loboes got a spike by Bailey Marcum and then took advantage of four straight Mustang errors to close out the match.

Two kills by Cutbirth and a block by Mitchell on Jeleah Ratliff got the Loboes out to a quick 4-0 lead in Game 2, which would grow to 11-3 at one point.  The Mustangs would cut that back to six, but after a time out by Dominguez, Marcum scored off a kill and a block of Brittani Molina, and would get another point on a block out of bounds by Roberts.  The Loboes' biggest lead would be 10, first at 19-9 on a bad hit by Lujan, and the teams would trade points after that, before Monahans won on another Marcum block of Molina.

Andrews would score the first point in Game 3, but as in Game 1, that would be their only lead.  The Loboes would go up for good at 3-2 on a Cutbirth kill, and after a kill by Ratliff, made the score 9-8.  The Loboes then went on an 11-2 run.  Jordan Latham, who struggled in the early going, had a pair of kills in that run, while Cutbirth had two kills, and Heather Schulz added a block for point on Lorann Frazier.

"Jordan's been with us the last two years on the bench, but this year she's had to get into it," Dominguez said.  "She was a little off, and I think she had some nerves early in the game, but then she finally started getting comfortable."

The 11-2 streak made the score 20-10.  The Loboes would go up by as many as 12 points after that, before finishing the match off on a spike by Marcum.

Andrews, which placed second in District 3-3A and defeated Brownfield in the bi-district round of the playoffs, ended their 2006 season with a 21-20 record, while Monahans improved to 39-3 going into their match with Lubbock Cooper, which drew a first round bye after a first place playoff victory over Seminole, and then defeated Presidio on Friday in Monahans in their area round match, by scores of 25-23, 25-20, 25-17.

The other Permian Basin quarterfinal on Tuesday will match Lamesa against Pecos.  The Golden Tornadoes, the third place finisher out of District 3-3A, outlasted Seminole in five games in their bi-district match, then swept District 1-3A champion Clint in Pecos on Saturday, 25-14, 25-18, 25-21 to advance to the I-3A quarterfinals.  The Eagles also came up with a sweep of a district champion, ousting 3-3A winner Sweetwater, 26-24, 26-24, 25-15, in their area round match at Greenwood.

The winners of Tuesday's matches will move on to the Region I-3A Tournament on Friday and Saturday at Lubbock Christian University.  The Loboes would face the winner of Tuesday's Gainesville-Iowa Park match in their Region I-3A semifinal.

Keyed by Kiefer Smith, Senior '07 and Chance Helmers, Junior '06