Eagles battle back to win Boulder City Invitational

In sports, it doesn’t matter how you start a tournament, just how you finish it.

Boulder City’s girls volleyball team began its own invitational with a loss Friday, but ended the tournament posing for photos with the championship trophy.

The Eagles outlasted Rancho, 25-22, 21-25, 15-7 in the championship match of the Boulder City Invitational on Friday.

“It’s pretty special to win this tournament,” said Boulder City coach Cherise Hinman, whose team lost its tournament opener to Virgin Valley. “I’m really happy with how they played. They have a lot of energy, focus and drive in them, and they took take through the rest of the tournament with them and brought us the championship.”

After splitting the first two sets, the Eagles jumped out to an early 5-1 lead in the third set with better serve placement. Hinman said her team pushed the blocks on the backside to help shut down some of the Rams’ better hitters. The Rams, who advanced to the final after rallying to win the last two sets against Calvary Chapel, never were able to recover from the Eagles’ fast start in the final set.

Jaden Wood led the Eagles with eight kills. Lauren Pocius had six kills and 13 digs. Alyssa Ybarra had four aces and 24 digs, and Tara Cox had 15 assists for Boulder City.

“They were really focused on winning this tournament … especially on our home turf,” Hinman said. “We had a nice student body turnout. It’s good when we get a crowd that spirited to help cheer us on.”

The Eagles had a few communication breakdowns while losing the second set. The Rams were able to pick up easy points several times as the ball would land in the middle of three or four Eagles, who each thought one of her teammates would return the volley.

Hinman said improving on that aspect of the game will be an area of focus for the Eagles in practice.

“That’s the communication end that we need to work on,” she said. “We need to continue keeping our energy up for all the sets, and we cannot get down on ourselves when we make mistakes. We need to stay positive throughout.”

Danielle Carino had seven kills to lead the Rams. Karime Raygoza had six kills and nine digs, and Serenity Sivongson had 12 assists.

Basic took third place in the tournament, edging Calvary Chapel, 25-18, 23-25, 17-15. The Lions’ Marissa Tiemann had six kills, and teammates Alexis Harris and Olivia Kaiser each had five kills in the third-place match.

Desert Oasis defeated Cheyenne in the Silver Bracket final, 18-25, 25-10, 15-7.