While the first two matches of the season couldn’t have gone much differently for Sedona Red Rock High School’s volleyball team, they were similar in one respect. Both finished 3-0. Sedona hosted Desert Heights Prep in the third match of the season, which did not follow the same script.
The Scorpions and the Yote split the first four sets, putting everything on the race to 15 in the winner-take-all fifth set. Only, things didn’t stop at 15. Eventually, the Sedona team got the two-point cushion it needed to win the final set 19-17 and secure a 3-2 victory in the match.
“I think we played very well,” SRRHS junior Sarah Frey said. “We started off rocky but we got it together and were able to fix our mistakes throughout the game. We started working together a lot better and it went very well.”
The Scorpions certainly did not get the start they were looking for. The visiting Yote came out strong and took a 1-0 lead, handing SRRHS a 19-25 defeat in the opener.
From there, though, Sedona toughened up, tying things up with a 25-17 win in the second and taking a 2-1 lead with a commanding 25-13 win in the third set. The Scorpions couldn’t quite close the deal in the fourth set, losing 19-25, but bounced back to seal the victory off with a dramatic fifth-set victory.
“The first game was a little rough,” junior Stephanie Medel said. “Our rotations were kind of rough but after a while we finally got them down. We got it all together and did pretty good.”
Through the early part of the season, the Scorpions had shown themselves to be a strong offensive team. The win against the Yote put the defense to the test. A challenge that Desert Heights offered Sedona was its crisp and precise passing. Because of that, the Yote were consistently in position to do exactly what they wanted offensively, which forced the SRRHS defense to step up.
The match with Desert Heights also put the Scorpions’ mettle to the test. After losing one match 3-0 and winning the next by the same margin, the Scorpions had yet to get into a contest where the winner and loser could be decided by one set, or even one point. Encountering a test like that was a welcome challenge for the SRRHS team.
“Going five sets against a team that good really helped us build as a team,” junior Emma Beattie said. “We saw what it was like to work for every point playing five sets, to go against a stronger team, to know where to place the ball more during those five sets, to work together and work more for every point.”
The win over Desert Heights was Sedona’s last home match until Tuesday, Oct. 20, when they host North Pointe Prep at 6 p.m. In the meantime, the Scorpions will have road matches against Glendale Prep on Thursday, Oct. 1, in a rematch of the season opener; Kingman Academy on Saturday, Oct. 3; Scottsdale Christian on Monday, Oct. 5; Northland Prep on Tuesday, Oct. 6; and Valley Lutheran on Thursday, Oct. 8. The match with Kingman Academy will start at 2 p.m. All others will start at 6 p.m.
The five-set victory moved the Scorpions at 2-1 on the young season. They fell to 2-2 on Tuesday, Sept. 29 with a 0-3 loss to Scottsdale Prep.
Coach Alex Bybee likes where the team stands after its first week of action.
“Last time I looked we were ranked at No. 3,” Bybee said, “I think we’re in a pretty good standing. I have a good idea now of what we need to work on going forward to be successful. But I think we’re good where we stand. There will definitely be some movement in the rankings and things like that, but I don’t see any reason why we won’t continue to be successful.”
