HIGHLANDS RANCH — After pushing Chaparral to five games last month, the Highlands Ranch volleyball team harbored ambitions of upsetting the top-ranked Wolverines on Tuesday night.
Chaparral had other ideas.
“We wanted to get it done in three,” senior Skylar Johnson said.
The Wolverines had to score the final five points of the third game to do so, but they accomplished their mission by defeating the No. 8 Falcons 25-18, 25-22, 26-24 in a key Class 5A Continental League game.
The road triumph marked the eighth consecutive win for Chaparral (15-1, 8-0), which remained in sole possession of first place in the state’s premier league.
“We knew they’d come out fighting, so we dug deep,” Johnson said. “We decided at the end that we needed to want it more, not let any balls drop and get all our serves in. We buckled down and did it.”
Besides having a sizable height advantage — the Wolverines deployed five players 6-feet or taller compared to two for Highlands Ranch — Chaparral simply relied on their stars. The Ole Miss- bound Johnson and Ohio State-bound middle blocker Anna Faul each were focused and playing in peak form, as was junior Nicole Dalton, who Wolverines coach TR Ellis claims “will go wherever she wants.”
Dalton had a match-best 12 kills, while her senior sister, Karlie, recorded eight, including four in the clinching game. Five of middle blocker Audri Marrs Miller’s attempts went for kills (no errors), for a gaudy .625 percentage.
“There were times when they’d get on runs and we couldn’t stop them, but we bounced back,” Nicole Dalton said. “It was a good finish.”
Highlands Ranch led the third game 17-10 and came tantalizingly close (24-21) to forcing a fourth, but never could shut the lid on the Wolverines.
“It’s definitely a matter of finishing,” Highlands Ranch junior outside hitter Breanna Wong said. “It seemed like we were ahead of them until about 15 in every game, and it fell apart every time.”
Wong led the Falcons (11-5, 6-2) with nine kills while Brogan Prior-Newburn and Paige Cooper added seven apiece.
