College volleyball wanted simply three losses inside a month’s time to power the workforce to reassess. These three setbacks, all to groups that earned bids to the Class 3A state match, helped ignite the Bulldogs’ run towards state championship glory final fall.
Senior center blocker Katie Bauer remembers that point properly.
“In the summertime, we had been a brand new workforce,” she mentioned. “We misplaced three fairly necessary seniors however when the time for the actual season got here round, we had been nonetheless type of determining who match the place and who did what. We began off fairly properly after which in the midst of the season, we had a tough patch, so we talked about what we would have liked from one another, what we would have liked from the coaches and from there on out, that belief (was) regained.”
They didn’t comprehend it on the time, however that final lack of that point span, which got here by the hands of eventual No. 5 seed Liberty Widespread, could be the ultimate setback of their total season. From there on out, the Bulldogs performed in 11 extra matches and solely dropped three units.
Bauer credit College’s robust league, maybe the hardest in all of Class 3A Colorado, for his or her future success. In any case, the Patriot League accounted for half of the entire groups that certified for the state match because of College, Liberty Widespread, Sterling, Platte Valley, Eaton and Resurrection Christian.
“There are such a lot of good groups within the Patriot League,” Bauer mentioned. “There’s not likely a foul workforce that you simply play. Each single workforce has its personal strengths, its personal weaknesses, so it actually helps in postseason. You study who wants what and all that.”
Bauer and the remainder of the Bulldogs will as soon as once more depend on that robust regular-season slate to assist information them into the postseason, as they give the impression of being to duplicate the success they noticed all through a 25-4 2021. She is going to function their high killer queen in addition to their No. 1 blocker after gathering 184 kills and 61 blocks throughout her junior season. Senior libero Jayden Nation will take cost of the protection after pacing the Bulldogs with 248 digs final 12 months. Freshman setter Kaitlin Smith will as soon as once more command the online after pulling collectively 480 assists in her first season.
College is already off to an awesome begin, having defeated Mead in its first match of the season. Subsequent, the Bulldogs will go head-to-head towards Palmer Ridge and Longmont in a impartial match that begins on Friday.
