Chris Day
ASC Sports Information
Sophomore outside hitter Dominique Davis recorded 17 kills while freshman middle hitter Megan Tapia tallied nine more on an impressive .533 hitting effort as the Adams State College Grizzly volleyball team closed out the regular season with a fine 25-19, 25-21, 25-23 sweep of visiting Fort Lewis College, Saturday night here in Plachy Hall.
The Grizzlies hit .239 in the match and finished the season with 9-17 overall and 6-12 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference records. The Skyhawks, who will still go to next weekend’s RMAC Tournament in Kearney, Neb. as the eighth seed, received 22 combined kills from outside hitters Jessica Wilson and Chelsea Flaming but fell to 15-11 overall and to 9-9 in the loop. They will face the top-seed and host University of Nebraska-Kearney Lopers in the quarterfinal round of the tournament next Thursday evening.
The Grizzlies, who had dropped three straight and five of six coming into the night honored their three seniors in outside hitter Tamara Fowler, setter Mary McNeil and right side and middle hitter Kelsey Miller before the match. All three were in coach Lindy Mortensen’s starting lineup.
Fowler finished the night, her last in a Grizzly volleyball uniform with seven kills, four digs and two blocks while hitting .250 while Miller had three digs and an assist. McNeil added on to her NCAA Division II era (1992-Present) career assists record with 34 and finished her brilliant career with 3,699, the second best mark in the Grizzlies’ all-time history. She also had four digs, three blocks a kill and two service aces. In the process, she finished her career with 207 blocks and 78 aces ranking fifth and tied for eighth on ASC’s Division II era charts in those respective statistical categories.
Davis was on fire throughout the night, especially in the first set when she put down seven kills while hitting at a blazing .583 clip. Fowler, in the starting lineup for just the fourth time this season, also added three kills in the set that saw the Grizzlies hit .237.
Down 8-6 in the early going of it, the Grizzlies went on a 12-3 extended run to go up 18-11thanks to a Davis service ace that bounced off the top of the net.
However, the Skyhawks came flying back using a 7-0 run sparked by a Flaming kill and continued with her at the service line. The Skyhawks had three straight blocks in that spurt and closed to within a single point before Deprece Washington answered back with a rejection of her own sparking a 5-0 Grizzly run that completed the first set.
The Grizzlies also used a big 10-1 run to take a commanding 11-3 lead in the second set only to watch the Skyhawks come back once again scoring 12 of the next 13 points with Flaming and Jenna Kinzer at the service line.
Trailing 19-17 after that mammoth-size run, the Grizzlies bounced back once again as two blocks and two Davis kills helped the Grizzlies re-take a 22-20 lead.
The teams then traded kills before a Flaming hitting error and Fowler kill sent the Grizzlies into the intermission up a pair of sets.
Holding the Skyhawks to a .027 hitting effort in the second set, the Grizzlies then took an 8-4 lead in the third set and never trailed the rest of the way although Fort Lewis did come back to tie the set at 13 and again at 20 on back-to-back Flaming kills moments after a Laura Loosbrock service ace helped spark the Grizzlies to a 20-17 lead.
However, the Grizzlies responded and scored three of the next four points thanks to two blocks and a Washington kill before Tapia put down two more kills, including the last one of the season to finish off the Skyhawks, who hit .155 throughout the night which was fairly even statistically.
The Grizzlies had a slight 42-38 edge in total kills although the Skyhawks had an equally slight 41-37 edge in total digs, thanks to a match-high 15 from freshman libero Jenna Kinzer. The Grizzlies, who had a 10-9 edge in blocks, received 12 digs from junior libero AJ Palmer, who like Kinzer and Grizzly sophomore defensive specialist Valerie Garcia all came out of Rampart High School.
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