The Meeker High School volleyball team faced two of its toughest opponents of the season this past week, falling to No. 3 Vail Christian on Tuesday, Sept. 15, before responding with a 3-0 sweep of previously undefeated Cedaredge on Friday, Sept. 18.
The Cowboys entered the week 7-2 after consecutive 3-0 road sweeps of De Beque and Soroco.
Meeker opened against Vail Christian, one of the top-ranked teams in Class 2A, and dropped the match 3-0, 25-11, 25-14, 25-20.
Despite the loss, 10th-year head coach Captain Greg Cravens said he was proud of the way his team battled.
“We battled tonight, and I’m very proud of them for that,” Cravens said. “That’s a very good volleyball team. I have some young kids on my team, and they needed to be in this atmosphere. But they just battled.”
After the first set, Cravens changed the Cowboys’ rotation and saw improvement in the team’s blocking. He also said Meeker’s serve receive and serving were strong throughout the match.
“Just the resilience,” Cravens said when asked what he wanted his team to take from the loss. “I changed the rotation in between games one and two. I thought we started blocking better. I thought serve receive we did well.”
Sophomore Raegan Clatterbaugh led Meeker with five kills on 16 attacks while hitting .312. Seniors Ruth LeBlanc and Lili Hernandez and freshman Graysie Coryell each added three kills. Clatterbaugh also recorded four aces, while junior Norah Loar led the Cowboys with eight digs.
Three days later, Meeker faced an undefeated Cedaredge team that entered Friday night’s match 8-0.
Cravens said the focus between the two matches was on defense and blocking, including adjustments to where Meeker’s back-row players positioned themselves against attacks from the left pin.
The Cowboys responded with one of their strongest performances of the season, sweeping Cedaredge 25-20, 25-18, 25-23.
Meeker finished with 29 kills on 122 attacks. LeBlanc led the team with nine kills, followed by Hernandez with six and Coryell with five. Senior Sawyer May added four kills, while junior Hailey Schwartz finished with three.
May and Schwartz each recorded three aces, while Hernandez and Clatterbaugh added two apiece. May and Clatterbaugh each contributed four total blocks.
Defensively, Loar and Clatterbaugh each finished with 16 digs. Coryell added nine and Schwartz had six as Meeker recorded 64 team digs.
Cravens said serving and blocking were two of the biggest differences between the two matches.
“Vail Christian is a very good team and we battled against them,” Cravens said. “Cedaredge is good, but we were much better at serving and our blocking game on Friday night.”
Meeker served at a 90.5% rate against Cedaredge and recorded 11 aces, helping keep the Bruins out of system and limiting their ability to set up their hitters.
“Serving was big Friday night,” Cravens said. “We kept them out of system, and it was hard for them to get a good ball to their hitters.”
Cravens also pointed to a play in the middle of the second set involving senior Keelan Dade as an example of the team’s defensive effort. After diving for a ball, Dade remained on the floor when it came back toward her but managed to get her right arm on it and send it back over the net. Meeker eventually won the point.
“It was a great play to watch,” Cravens said.
Although the Cowboys knew Cedaredge entered the match undefeated, Cravens said the focus remained on Meeker’s own execution.
“The girls knew they were undefeated, but we needed to worry more about us and the things we needed to be better at,” he said. “We need to continue getting better match after match.”
Senior Ruth LeBlanc said the Cowboys emphasized maintaining their own standard throughout the week rather than letting the opponent dictate how they played.
“We talked a lot about playing our game, not dropping our standard and playing with swagger,” LeBlanc said. “We talked about being competitive and went over how we can be stronger offensively.”
Against Vail Christian, the Cowboys spent much of the match scrambling to keep balls alive. Against Cedaredge, LeBlanc said Meeker was more deliberate about attacking and putting pressure back on the Bruins.
“I think we played Cedaredge with a lot more swagger and offensive strength,” LeBlanc said. “Vail Christian, we scrapped really hard and we got balls up. But for Cedaredge, we determined where we were going to put the ball and put it back on them.”
The sweep gave Meeker a significant confidence boost heading into the middle stretch of the regular season.
“To sweep a team that is 8-0 was a major confidence boost for our team,” LeBlanc said. “I think it will change a lot of the rest of the season and how we play because of how well we played this weekend.”
Cravens said the Cowboys still have work to do as they move deeper into league play.
“We need to just keep looking at the things we are working on and not get complacent,” he said. “We are not playing our best ball yet and need to keep working hard.”
With the win, Meeker improved to 8-3 overall and 4-2 in league play. As of Sept. 21, the Cowboys were ranked No. 17 in the Class 2A CHSAA seeding index.
Meeker will host Caprock Academy on Friday, Sept. 25, at 6 p.m. before traveling to Hayden on Saturday, Sept. 26, for a 2:30 p.m. match.
Senior Ruth LeBlanc sends a spike over the net during an Aug. 28 match against Basalt. LeBlanc helped lead the Cowboys’ offense with nine kills in Meeker’s 3-0 sweep of Cedaredge on Sept. 18. JARED HENDERSON PHOTO