No. 10 Fossil Ridge girls volleyball aces test against crosstown rival Fort Collins

A big home crowd didn’t unnerve the Fossil Ridge High School volleyball team.

Neither did the opponent, crosstown rival Fort Collins, a team that had won seven of its previous eight matches to remain within a half-game of the SaberCats and Legacy as Front Range League co-leaders.

Fossil Ridge was on its game, serving with precision, passing crisply and using a wide variety of attacks and attackers to keep the Lambkins off balance in a three-game sweep in front of about 600 fans.

“There was just a lot of energy throughout all three sets,” Fossil Ridge junior Emily Converse said. “We just stayed consistent as a team.”

Here are three takeaways from the match:

Fossil Ridge controls match with serving

Fossil Ridge coach Natalie Burton knows her players get sick of practicing their serves, spending time on it every 15 minutes or so in every practice, between every drill and before each water break.

It paid off in a big way against the Lambkins, with 10 aces and several more tough serves that kept Fort Collins from getting into any kind of offensive rhythm.

The 25-16, 25-21, 25-19 win was the eighth in the past nine matches for Fossil Ridge (11-4, 8-1 FRL). Fort Collins fell to 8-7, 7-3 with just its second loss since Sept. 3.

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Converse had three aces, while Bella Kiefer and Nicole Grove each served two, and three other SaberCats had one apiece.

“It’s like our secret weapon,” Burton said. “We like to go hard with our serve, and they’ve done a really great job owning it and working hard at it.”

SaberCats attack from all sides

Digging up all those hard serves in practice pays off in the passing game, too.

That clearly showed against the Lambkins, with setters Emma Grace Moddelmog and Makayla Dorsey able to distribute the ball to any of their hitters on just about every play.

Although the majority of their kills came from outside hitters working from the left side of the setter, they were able to mix in a nice variety of right-side attacks from Dylanne Hardy and Grove and a lot of quick hits in the middle from Erin Herrmann and Delaney Ewing.

That kept Fort Collins from putting up the kind of blocks it used to shut down Rocky Mountain in a four-set match earlier this month and beat Brighton in a five-setter earlier this week. Fort Collins’ junior Claire Wagstaff is one of the top Class 5A blockers in the state, averaging 1.5 a set.

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She had just one against Fossil Ridge, and her team was limited to just five, three involving the other starting middle blocker, Jordyn Romano. Wagstaff led the Lambkins in kills with nine.

“We have good hitters everywhere, which is amazing,” Burton said. “So I tell the girls we’ve just got to win the serve-and-pass game, because if we can pass, watch out; we’re hard to stop.”

Fossil Ridge eyes another city championship

This was the second crosstown rivalry match of the season for the SaberCats, with a win over Poudre and now another over a Fort Collins team that beat Rocky Mountain in four sets last week. And the Lobos swept Poudre on Tuesday, so Fossil Ridge looks to be the favorite to claim yet another city title.

The SaberCats are in the hunt for the FRL title, as well, keeping pace with Legacy (16-1, 8-1) at the top of the league standings with six matches against conference opponents remaining.

“It’s going to happen,” Converse said of her team’s prospects of winning the league title.

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Kelly Lyell reports on CSU, high school and other local sports and topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, follow him on Twitter @KellyLyell and find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fossil Ridge volleyball aces test against crosstown rival Fort Collins