The valley volleyball teams have been put on notice: the Summit Tigers are much improved. Eagle County’s I-70 rivals, however, aren’t on Eagle Valley’s level quite yet. The Devils dispatched the delegates from the other side of Vail Pass 25-17, 25-16, and 25-21 in a battle that felt much more intense than last September’s 25-14, 25-10, 25-9 drubbing.
“New coach, new system — and it’s great, we need some competition,” Garvey praised in regard to the visitors and their new coach, Cynthia Durloo.
“Coming out there and challenging us — to be down in that third set and fight back, we did the same thing in Steamboat — so, just really proud of the girls’ resiliency. They listen really well and they want to learn.”
A back and forth first set was knotted up at 10-10 before the Devils’ hitters got going. Taylor Hooper and Talia Crawford initiated a 6-1 run. The well-oiled Eagle Valley machine didn’t give Summit much time to breathe in a 25-17 opening win.
If the first set was about power, the second was about touch and placement. The Devils’ middle hitters showed spike but switched gears mid-flight with touch-shots over the Summit defense.
“Every once in a while we’ll come back and start attacking just a little bit too strong and so our players have to just kind of reorient themselves,” said Garvey.
“And it gets hard sometimes — you want to pound that ball. You have to resist it, you have to score with the tip.”
Trailing 5-2, the hometown student section instigated a comeback with the ol’ “there’s a net there,” chant after a Summit spike sailed south. Behind libero Natalie Izbicki’s serving, the Devils went on a 6-0 run, punctuated with an “up high and down hard” kill from Crawford that would have made Monday Night Football’s Kevin Harlan proud.
“Our serving game really improved in that second set; that’s one of the things we count on.”
Eagle Valley’s 8-5 lead, however, didn’t intimidate the Tigers, who crawled back and actually took the lead 11-10 when Hooper’s drive went long. After tying it up, the sophomore skyed for redemption, but laid it gently over the rising Summit block instead of trying to hammer it home — and it worked for the 12-11 lead.
The Devils didn’t look back from there, cruising to 18-14 before Durloo, who has done a marvelous job of rejuvenating a team that was 3-20 last year and is 2-3 so far in 2022, called for a timeout.
The reset didn’t do much in the way of dampening Eagle Valley, however, who went on a 7-2 run to close out the set and go up 2-0.
The Devils trailed 6-10 early in the third, but seemed to be searching for momentum when sophomore Aspen Misch checked into the game and sent one straight into the floor to make it 11-8. From there, however, it was all Summit, who surged to a 17-11 lead.
An errant serve and another shot into the net — which woke up the student section — started a 7-1 run. Eagle Valley finally reclaimed the lead 20-19, thanks to a hustling dive by Yurcak to keep the ball in play. On the next possession, the setter made Misch look good with a perfect assist. Though she sent one out of bounds to make it 21-20, she made up for it with another assist to Hooper.
“C.J.’s decision-making in the final set really kept them off-guard,” Garvey said. “They didn’t know where we were coming from.”
After a marathon volley — which was prolonged by another Devil who sprinted to left field to keep things alive — the Devils held a 23-20 advantage, forcing another Tiger timeout. Two plays later Chloe Nicholds served it into the net to end the game at 25-21.
With the win, the Devils improved to 6-3. They travel to Denver for a tournament this weekend, where they’ll face Denver East, Mountain Vista, Eaglecrest and Rampart.
“We’re looking to continue to get better,” Garvey said.
“We’re going down there because we want to see tough opponents and we’re looking forward to that challenge.”
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