NMMI Sports Press

Last week, Bronco volleyball coach Shelby Forchtner said she wanted her team to wrap up the home conference season with quick, three-game sets against the team's final four opponents. While they didn't do that Wednesday — it took four to beat Western Texas — they made it look easy Saturday against Midland, winning 25-13, 25-18. 25-18.

"We've had some good practices this week, so we really wanted to take that into this match, and I feel like we finally played pretty consistently," said coach Shelby Forchtner. "Our blocking still struggled a bit. Just that higher tempo of play, we seem not to be very patient. But everything else. We did a really good job defensively. It seemed like most everybody was clicking offensively."

Game 1 went back and forth before the home team pulled out the win, and NMMI (13-7, 6-2) trailed early in Game 2 — the Chaps (7-3, 5-3) went up 10-4 — but the Institute battled back to tie and then go ahead, and never was behind again.

Game 3 saw the Broncos lead from the start and never look back.

Individually, NMMI played a much more well-rounded game. Offensively, 10 of the 12 players who saw playing team had kills.

Heleine Filipe led the way with nine, while Marian Ovalle and Vittoria Price each had eight; Dana Manu had seven; Kasia Niderla six; Julia Johnson three; Darcy Dood two and Sophia Price, Cassidy Nixon, and Sadie Gomez one each. 

"They did spread it around just a little bit," the coach said. "Tori still did a really good job. Tori and Kasha both still got a lot of kills, but (Midland has) one set of three rotations where we really tried to funnel the ball to our right sides more just because it's a weaker blocker, so those kids did a really good job today, on that side and that's what we needed."

Nixon had 19 set assists and Aniston Biel 17, while Biel had two aces and Nixon and Johnson one apiece. On defense, both Jalen Baca and Niderla had double figures in digs, 11 and 10. Nine others contributed to the dig total.

The Broncos wrap up the regular season next week, with a Wednesday match vs. Frank Philips and Saturday against Clarendon, and Forchtner said her team can't afford to overlook either squad.

"Both those teams are kind of scrappy," she said. "Both of them have a few good swings. But if we really, truly, honestly control our side, like we did this game, we should be able to finish out at home with two more wins."

Then it's on to the Region V tournament March 26-27 at Lubbock Christian University.

Forchtner said that if NMMI can win their next two games, they will be the No. 2 seed in the WJCAC — behind Odessa — getting a bye for the first round and waiting to see who they'll face.

"And honestly, we're prepared," she said. "We know what it's going to take to win the region. You can't look past anybody in this conference because they're all sneaky and it's real hard to beat people for the third time. So we just have to make sure we stay focused on whoever we play first round and get that done and taken care of so we can move on into the championship game."