Campo Verde VB keeps perfect seeding record intact at 15-0

October 10, 2012 by Les Willsey, AZPreps365


It's a short week for Campo Verde's volleyball team with just Wednesday night's home match with Queen Creek on its plate. The Coyotes could use the rest of the week to recuperate.

Campo Verde overcame an 0-2 deficit to prevail going away with a 20-25, 23-25, 25-11, 25-17, 15-6  triumph over upset-minded Queen Creek.

Camp Verde ran its seedings record to 15-0 and will maintain its top-ranking in Division III next week when seedings are released again, classes resume and the schedule picks up. The Coyotes are 24-4 overall and have only three seeding matches left before state tournament play begins. Queen Creek, which competes in Division II and is battling for a state berth in that division, had a seedings-game win streak of eight snapped with the loss. Queen Creek is 11-3 in seeding matches In a prior meeting this season, Campo Verde spotted Queen Creek the first set and won the next three. Getting pushed by the Bulldogs wasn't a surprise.

"Losing the second game was tough, but I told the girls we were weathering their storm and our own," Campo Verde coach Tricia Melfy said. "(Queen Creek) played great the first two games. But we had to stop weathering our own storm. We settled down and played very well after the first two games."

Queen Creek frustrated Campo Verde particularly in the first two sets with junior outside hitter Jasmine Hanna producing kills right and left. Unofficially Hanna collected 25 kills on the evening, but Campo Verde made Hanna work harder for those the final three sets with some blocks here and there.

Campo Verde didn't rely on any one person to fuel its comeback. Ally Dell'Amico picked up her game after a bit of a slow start. She finished with 17 kills, 26 digs, and three aces. Haley Christiansen (12 kills and six aces), Misha McDowell (10 kills), libero Dani Hallaran (26 digs) and setter Jessi Lammers (45 assists) did their share.

Queen Creek couldn't get the momentum back after its 2-0 start, even in the deciding set. Campo Verde jumped out to a 5-1 lead thanks to two service errors, a passing error and hitting error. Hanna had three kills in the final set and teammate Emmee Ashby (13 kills for the match) had one.

Queen Creek's third service error of the set made it 9-6 Campo Verde and the Coyotes Dell'Amico came up with two kills and assisted on a block to force Queen Creek's final timeout at 12-6. Christiansen closed out the match serving the final six points for Campo Verde.

"It helped we did better blocking on (Hanna)," Melfy said. "She's going to get kills not matter what. She's that good. But we gave her something to think about a few times. We played much better overall the last three games. It was a great team effort."