The New Mexico Military Institute volleyball team upped their record to 15-7 overall and 8-2 in the Western Junior College Athletic Conference, sweeping Clarendon College in straight sets (25-9, 25-17, 25-14) to close out the regular season.

Freshman outside hitter Darcy Dodd served up five aces – and long strings of points in all three sets –allowing the Broncos to establish the tempo both offensively and defensively.

"We controlled the serving and passing game and that was the big difference in the match," said NMMI's 16-year veteran head coach Shelby Forchtner.

"I think we did a better job offensively of controlling our side," continued Forchtner. "We've been struggling, having to work around one or two of our offensive threats, having to cover one or two people every single game. But today we did better offensively as a group."

Sophomore outside hitter Julia Johnson led the offensive charge for the Broncos with 14 kills, while the Price sisters, soph Vittoria and frosh Sophia, tallied 17 kills together. But every front-row player contributed during the match with few errors on the attack and a solid .354 kill percentage as a team.

Forchtner also liked the way her team played on the other side of the ball.

"I thought we did a really good job defensively," said Forchtner. "We picked up a lot of balls off of the block. Going into the regional tournament, we need to really work on our block – the timing and closing of it."

NMMI has one week to prep prior to the Region V West Postseason Tournament, held this year in Lubbock, Texas at Lubbock Christian University's Rip Griffen Center on March 26-27.

During that time, Forchtner also wants to focus on fine-tuning their attack.

"We also need to work on moving our offense around and being more deceptive," explained the head coach. "It's hard to stop us when we're running different things, but when we run the same thing every time, in every rotation, they know exactly what is coming."

Due to their 8-2 WJCAC record, the Broncos will receive the No. 2 seed at regionals, earning a bye in the first round. They'll take on the winner of the match between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds on Saturday (Mar. 27) at 12:00 pm CDT. The victor in that match will move on to the Region V West championships, slated for 4 pm CDT the same day.