Moose blank Thunderbirds at home

ALAMOSA — A brand new court surface has long since been christened with Alamosa Volleyball’s return to action against Del Norte on August 30th. Despite that, Alamosa played well on the home court dispatching the visiting Thunderbirds 3-0.

Last year, Alamosa (6-1) ripped through the regular season posting a perfect 25-0 record. This season they won’t have an undefeated record painting a target on their back. The Moose will have at least one notch in the loss column, at last weekend’s tournament in Glenwood Springs they took a two-set loss to Denver Christian.

The Thunderbirds (4-2) were building steam entering Thursday’s contest as winners of their last three. Though the 1A Thunderbirds gave up two classes to the host Moose, they showed plenty of fight.

Things started with Alamosa taking control of the first set early with a 6-2 lead. The visitors rallied and closed the gap to 6-5 before Alamosa asserted themselves. The Mean Moose would go on a 5-point run prompting Sangre de Cristo’s new head coach Rachael Ringler to call a timeout in an attempt to disrupt momentum. On the other side of the timeout, five more serves from Alyssa Crowther wouldn’t make it back to Alamosa’s side of the court, creating a 16-5 gap in Alamosa’s favor. Sangre would have a few productive sets but the 11-point lead was too much to come back from, Alamosa took the first set 25-14.

Following a serve-error from the T-Birds to start the second set, Alamosa opened a 4-0 lead. The Moose would take that small advantage and build it until they led 15-8. Facing mounting pressure the Thunderbirds rallied with a 6-point run, enough to prompt a timeout from Alamosa’s bench. Back from the timeout, a serve error from Sangre would give the Moose the ball back leading 15-14.

The Moose would hold the lead to the match point leading 24-19. Once again Sangre de Cristo refused to go away putting together a 3-point run. Alamosa’s Emily DePriest would get the kill, giving Alamosa the 25-22 win.

With a 2-0 lead, there was blood in the water. Alamosa fast-tracked the final set of the match picking up points in clusters going up 20-6 at one point before sealing things at 25-10.

The Moose will play their first league game this Saturday when they go on the road to meet Montezuma-Cortez the matches begin at 1 p.m. Sangre de Cristo will follow suit with a home league match against Mountain Valley-Moffat at 10 a.m. also on Saturday. The Thunderbirds currently sport a 1-0 league record.