Lady Wildcats claim district championship over Hobbs

For most of four games, senior outside hitter Lainey Flatow carried the Clovis High volleyball team Saturday night.

Then, with Flatow rotating out after going off the front row, others took over and rallied the Lady Wildcats past Hobbs 21-25, 25-23, 25-20, 19-25, 15-10 in the District 4-5A tournament championship match at Rock Staubus Gym.

Flatow had 26 kills for the match — all but two during the first four games — but the Lady Cats (15-6) mounted a belated rallly without her in the final game, scoring 13 of the final 16 points after trailing 7-2.

Antiesha Brown and Meagan Baglien, both of whom had quiet nights overall, each delivered a couple of kills to pull Clovis even 7-7. Then freshman outside hitter Alex Mendoza converted two quick-sets by Baglien to put the Lady Cats in position to win it, and senior Leia Willis came up with only the team’s second block of the night on Hobbs’ Carlie Duncan on match point.

Lady Cats coach Darrel Ray admitted he was a little surprised to see quick-sets in that situation for Mendoza, who got three all told in that set from Baglien after having just three kills in the first four games.

“I don’t know, if I’d been the setter, with the district championship on the line, if I could’ve given the ball to a freshman on a ‘quick,’” Ray said. “And twice (at the end), she delivered.”

Until the final game, Flatow kept the Lady Cats afloat. She had five kills at the outset as Clovis bolted to an 8-2 lead, but Hobbs (10-12) stormed back to take a one-game lead.

Clovis then faced deficits of five and six points in the next two games, but rallied as Flatow collected 11 kills in the second set and seven more in the third.

“I thought I did pretty bad,” Flatow said. “It seemed like I was hitting out a lot. It was just awkward — it seemed like we couldn’t get anything going.”

The Lady Cats opened a 4-1 lead in the fourth game, but Hobbs scored the next seven points and led the rest of the way.

“We never got into a nice rhythm,” Ray said. “It seemed like everything was nickels and dimes, but thank goodness it added up to a dollar.”

Brown finished with nine kills, while Baglien had six kills, 12 digs and 27 assists. Sophomore libero Felicia Aguilar compiled 24 digs to lead four Clovis players in double figures in that category.

Flatow agreed that the whole match was a struggle.

“I know we wanted it,” she said. “But we’d mess up and just have to fight through that.”

Hobbs, which outblocked the Lady Cats 7-2 and outaced them 11-8, got 12 kills from Duncan and 11 from junior middle blocker Diera Davis.

The Lady Eagles will have to wait to see if they get an at-large berth to the 12-team state field when NMAA officials meet today in Albuquerque.