Kobe King is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism graduate student assigned to cover Betty H. Fairfax for AZPreps365.com

LAVEEN — The Metro Tech girls volleyball team frustrated Betty Fairfax in each set Tuesday, using a balanced offensive attack and forced errors to seal a road victory sweep.

Betty Fairfax (3-4, 3-3) was stunned by a quick offensive start from Metro Tech (2-5, 2-4), falling behind early in a match where they were unable to rally back. The Knights won the match with scores of 25-12, 25-21, and 25-23.

The Knights won their sixth straight regular season match against the Stampede dating back to the 2021 season.

“We started with a great intensity,” Knights coach Bryan Heckler said. “Instead of waiting for the game to come to us, we brought the action.”

A three-pronged attack on offense elevated the Knights’ offense from the beginning, with Anahi Calderon striking first. Calderon accrued two kills and two aces in the first six points of the match to set the tone with a 6-2 lead.

Monica Arreola-Gonzalez contributed an additional kill and ace. Wendy Hernandez Ramirez piled on with two kills to propel the Knights to a 17-8 lead. The Stampede committed a net violation, serving error, and two held balls in this stretch.

They offered little resistance for the rest of the set as they succumbed to a 25-12 first-set loss.

“From the beginning, we started with really low energy, “ Stampede junior Brooklyn Scott said. “We were really in our heads and we didn’t have a reason to be.”

Despite a slow start from Scott, she rebounded to lead the match with 10 kills.

The second set looked to be much of the same for the Stampede, as the Knights erupted to a 5-0 lead behind three aces from Ramirez.

This momentum quickly dissipated as the Stampede’s offense started to spark. Scott and junior Abbey Risenmay recorded four kills in a rally that put them up 10-8. 

After battling back and forth for the next eight points, Gonzalez and Ramirez went on a run of two straight kills and aces to separate themselves from the Stampede, 20-15.

A brief timeout from Isom seemed to revive the Stampede’s chances in the set, with two straight aces from senior Sophia Villa-Mendoza closing the gap to a single point.

Heckler countered with a timeout of his own and kept the set out of reach with strong team defense, as Amy Valenzuela Arvallo collected the Knights’ first block of the match and they closed out the set, 25-21.

A theme for the match, the Stampede fell behind early in the third set. The Stampede trailed 13-11 in the set despite garnering five kills to only two kills for the Knights.

The lead never grew more than three points the rest of the way, but the Knights stayed ahead behind uncompromising defense. The Knights gathered a single error as the lead shrunk to 22-21.

Vallaro finished the match with her only kill, putting the Stampede away in a 25-23 set.

Although Isom was disappointed in her team’s lack of energy, she was impressed with how her team competed despite being without senior Kristina Castaneda due to injury. 

“What I took away from tonight was the score,” Isom said. “Each score got better and better. If we could’ve started how we did in the third set, we could’ve pushed this to five.”

Betty H. Fairfax (3-4, 3-3) travels to McClintock (5-2, 3-2) on Thursday at 6 p.m.

Metro Tech (2-5, 2-4) returns home Thursday against Alhambra (4-3, 3-2) at 6 p.m.