THS spikers win sixth in a row

Tucumcari’s volleyball team extended its winning streak to six with a resounding 25-16, 25-17, 25-11 non-district victory over visiting Pecos on Saturday.

Cambree Benavidez made a team-high 12 kills for the Lady Rattlers, and teammate July Lafferty added nine kills and three blocks.

Haisley Huffman added six kills, and Harley McKinney served four aces. Caylee Benavidez totaled 31 assists.

“The girls played fundamentally sound during the game,” Tucumcari coach Dana Benavidez said. “They worked on eliminating unforced errors. July and Caylee did very well running different offensive sets and executed those perfectly.

“We continue to work offensively on scoring with big hits from Haisley and Cambree. Super proud of my team’s energy and playing hard all the time.”

Tucumcari, ranked fourth in Class 3A by MaxPreps.com, improved to 12-4 overall.

Pecos fell to 3-7.

Tucumcari 3, Estancia 2

Down 2-1 during a non-district road match at Estancia last Tuesday, the Lady Rattlers rallied to win two straight sets, including a resounding 15-1 decision in the clincher.

During the fifth and deciding set, Cambree Benavidez started her team strong with three kills early.

Later in the set, Caylee Benavidez served four aces to leave little doubt of the outcome.

The Lady Bears also committed seven errors during the set.

“We started off a little slow but started playing great,” coach Benavidez said of the match. “Every point was a battle because Estancia is good defensively. But in the fifth set we dominated with our serving, defense and attacking the ball.”

Estancia fell to 6-6 overall.

Maxwell 3, San Jon 2

The visiting Lady Coyotes lost a closely fought five-set, non-district match against Maxwell on Saturday.

San Jon fell to 9-7 overall.

San Jon coach Bobby Kandel said his team was missing one of its top hitters, Addie Lafferty, which he said changed the squad’s rotation and “takes us out of our rhythm bad.”

“We had a hard time being confident enough to hit,” he said. “When we hit, we had no problem scoring. When we played fearful, it just came down to errors. Serve-receive errors is what hurt us the most.”

Maxwell improved to 4-7.

Elida 3, San Jon 0

The host Lady Coyotes fell 25-18, 25-17, 28-26 to state-ranked Elida during a non-district match on Thursday.

Sarah Archuleta led San Jon with five kills and six aces, and teammate Alexa Becerra added four kills. Dakota Fisher added three aces.

Elida, ranked 10th in Class 1A by MaxPreps.com, improved to 9-5.