Montrose High Upsets Top Team

By Jonathan Maness

Posted by:

Erin Eddy

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DENVER – Eighth-seeded Montrose High came into the Class 4A state volleyball tournament with a chip on their shoulder and it showed Friday.

Montrose upset top-seeded Cheyenne Mountain in five games, 16-25, 25-19, 25-22, 19-25 and 15-13.

“It was huge beating Cheyenne,” said MHS head coach Shane Forrest. “The girls came out and played hard. We were disappointed with our seed, it was a slap in the face and the girls wanted to prove they were better than that.”
Montrose's Courtney Geesing goes up for the block during the Lady Indians' match against Mullen Friday afternoon. The Lady Indians are back in action today. See Sunday's Daily Press for final results. (Jonathan Maness / Special to the Press)

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It also helped that the team saw the No. 8 seed defeat the top-seed in the first round of the last season’s tournament.

“That helped, after seeing that we knew we could do it,” Forrest said.

Things didn’t go well early for the Lady Indians as they lost big in the first game. However, they used a 20-9 advantage in the second game to gain the momentum and win three of the next four games.

Montrose took the momentum into its match with No. 5 Mullen as the Lady Indians went on to win the first two games against the Mustangs before losing 25-21, 25-20, 12-25, 18-25 and 10-15.

A pair of aces by Anna Finley and kills by Darby Jones and Brianna Verble helped the Lady Indians jump out to 16-15 advantage. Back-to-back kills by Kelsie Dardis sealed the victory for MHS.

The Lady Indians led the entire way in the second game. A kill by Jones pushed the advantage to 21-16 and a block by Courtney Geesing gave Montrose a two-game lead.

However, Mullen wouldn’t go away and jumped out to an 8-0 lead and cruised to a 25-12 victory in the third.

The Lady Mustangs continued its success in Game 4, jumping out to a 22-13 advantage. An ace by Abby Wolverton and a pair of kills by Darby Jones cut Mullen’s lead to 22-18.

However, that was as close as MHS could get.

“Mullen didn’t start playing until the third game and that was when we started to let up,” Forrest said. “We fell apart and started to get timid. You can’t do that against a team like Mullen that plays that good of defense.”

The Lady Indians have to win today's match against Windsor to advance to the semifinals and Forrest wouldn’t expect anything less.

“Our expectations are high. We want to win it,” She said. “We have no doubts we can get the victory. If we win, we are in.”