PARKER — The Ponderosa Mustangs won’t scare anybody on paper.
Even during warm-ups, the Mustangs, who have just two girls 6 feet or taller, don’t look like anything abundantly special.
Then the top-ranked Mustangs start playing, and all bets are off.
“We’re very efficient,” Mustangs coach Rob Graham said. “I think everything we do, we do it with efficiency. . . . Our movement, how we work as a team, is very cohesive. Everybody knows where everybody is supposed to be. It makes your life easy.”
The Mustangs made their three-game sweep of Continental League foe Rock Canyon look easy Thursday, as they put on a clinic of defense, passing, blocking and hitting from all spots and every angle.
With the 25-21, 25-21, 25-14 victory, the Class 5A Mustangs (13-0, 5-0 in league) continued their fine form that began this past summer with a victory at the University of Northern Colorado tournament and continued with an early-season victory over perennial powerhouse Grandview.
In a refreshing twist to big-school volleyball, a team loaded with Division I talent isn’t leading the pack by October.
“Beating Grandview, a team that is constantly winning state, that definitely boosted us up and we decided, ‘You know what? We can do this,’ ” said senior outside hitter and defensive standout Becky Stewart.
Behind junior setter Hannah Hoffman, attackers Carly Boatwright, Mariah Goody and Caitie Breaux, and the defense of Stewart, Kendall Howard and Rachel Gress, the Mustangs were fluid and quick to dispatch the 4A Jaguars (8-5, 3-2).
Hoffman quarterbacked a fine show, flicking passes with accuracy and variety. She finished with 32 assists and five kills, and continually presented Boatwright (14 kills), Goody (six) and Breaux (four) with great opportunities. Tori Minovich and Kelsye VanDenend had three kills apiece.
“Everything is just perfect with us,” said Hoffman, a 5-9 junior. “We have great passing, most of the time, great team defense and awesome hitters. So it’s easy for us to use what we know and put it against the other team.”
The Mustangs broke into a trot once, as the Jaguars forced Graham to take a timeout after Ponderosa’s 20-10 lead in the first game was reduced to 21-18. But Boatwright answered with a booming kill, and suddenly all was right with the Mustangs.
The Jaguars got 10 kills from Ashley Norton and nine kills from the jump-serving Kenzi Mitzner. Meredith Rollins had 15 assists and five kills, and Caitlen Pogue added 10 assists.
