Lady Rattlers rally to win season opener

Tucumcari's volleyball team overcame a 2-0 match deficit and a bad case of jitters by rallying to defeat Fort Sumner 23-25, 18-25, 25-15, 25-21, 15-12 on Saturday in both teams' season-opener.

Sisters Caylee and Cambree Benavidez led the Lady Rattlers with nine kills each. Haisley Huffman added six kills. July Lafferty added four blocks, and Kirksey Smith totaled three service aces.

Tucumcari coach Dana Benavidez said it was only the second time her team has defeated perennially tough Fort Sumner in her eight seasons of guiding the team. The previous time was last year, which also was a five-set epic at Fort Sumner.

With six seniors and nine returning starters, hopes are high for this year's Lady Rattlers squad. Coach Benavidez said those expectations weighed heavily on her players during the first two sets.

Tucumcari took a lead only one time during that span and committed 25 fielding or passing errors to the Vixens' 11.

"The girls were nervous," she said. "They had a lot of pressure on them to be great. They want to be great. They needed to take a breath and regroup, and they did.

"To be down 2-0 on the first game of the year and fight back shows what those girls are."

Coach Benavidez told her players after the second-set loss they had to be more aggressive on offense.

"Our hitters had to hit," she said. "We weren't scoring in the first two sets. We were dinking too much and were making unforced errors. We went back to fundamentals."

In the third set, the Lady Rattlers took the initiative and didn't fall behind as they did earlier. Smith served 10 straight points, including three aces, to close the set. Lafferty made a crucial block, and Kylie'Ann Rincones made a kill on set point.

"Kirksey served amazing tonight," her coach said. "We didn't make many serving errors the entire match."

In the fourth set, Tucumcari closed it with two Cambree Benavidez kills and a Lafferty block.

In the fifth and deciding set, the Lady Rattlers roared to leads of 8-2 and 11-4.

Fort Sumner rallied to within 13-12, but the Vixens committed a service error, and Rincones responded with an ace to secure the victory.

For the Vixens, Allyssa Casaus led her team with 17 kills and three blocks. Emmarie Casaus aded 11 kills.

Fort Sumner coach Sonja Williams was disappointed her team let a 2-0 match lead get away, even her working with only a handful of returning starters this year.

"Clearly we have a lot of work to do," she said. "We've completely changed our program, so our girls are learning a lot of new things.

"But I'm proud of them. I thought we played great, and we're going back to the grind on Monday. We'll work hard, and I think we'll be all right."

Tucumcari next plays at the Logan Longhorn Volleyball Tournament on Thursday and Saturday. The Lady Rattlers begin pool play with a match against Springer at 1 p.m. Thursday, then against Grady at 2:20 p.m. and versus Elida at 4:20 p.m.

After that, the teams will be seeded into a traditional bracket format for evening play. The semifinals will be Saturday morning, with the third-place and championship matches that afternoon.

Other teams in the tournament include Logan, Floyd, Clayton and Roy-Mosquero.