Peter Dindinger — NMMI Sports Press
The 2021 Bronco volleyball season started off with a bang Friday afternoon at the Godfrey Athletic Center.
Behind a combined 24 kills from Marian Ovalle and Allyah Tokelau, the New Mexico Military Institute came away with a straight-set, 25-18, 25-18, 25-13, win over the preseason No. 13 ranked Seward County Community College Saints on Day 1 of the 14th annual NMMI Classic.
"It's good to get our first win against a really good opponent," said NMMI head coach Shelby Forchtner. "It seemed like we had more attackers than they did. Offensively, everybody did a pretty good job, but we had a few that kind of stood out that last game."
The Broncos (1-0) played through two different lead changes to begin the first set before extending their lead to four points after a kill by Katarzyna Niderla.
NMMI's lead grew to 10 in the middle of the set before Seward County tried to creep back in and cut away at the deficit.
The Broncos stayed tough and finished off the Saints, 25-18.
Seward County had the lead twice early in the second set, but NMMI rose to the challenge and ended up flipping the script.
A clutch kill by Darcy Dodd extended the Broncos' lead to 13-9.
NMMI never lost the lead for the rest of the second game.
Mio Yamamoto added to the offense by serving up an ace to make the score 15-11.
Tokelau delivered a pair of kills late in the set to hold on to a four-point lead.
NMMI's Ovalle and Barbara Guedes Rezende were impenetrable at the net as the duo blocked a shot to extend their teams lead to five.
Ovalle then tallied a big kill to help the Broncos eventually take the second set 25-18.
NMMI began the final game on a 4-0 run. Its led grew to 14-9 in the middle of the set.
Dodd came away with another kill to extend the Broncos' lead to six. Later on, Karya Suvarioglu blocked a shot that resulted in a point for NMMI to increase the lead to 10.
Tokelau and Ovalle delivered two big kills to help NMMI finish off the match in straight sets.
Dodd added to the offense with nine kills while Niderla had five. Suvarioglu aided the Broncos with 16 assists and Megan Waghorn tallied 15.
Yamamoto had a solid day serving as she had four aces while on defense she had a team-high 26 digs.
Waghorn came away with 12 digs while Ovalle had seven. Jalen Baca, Suvarioglu and Rezende all had four digs apiece.
Up front on the net, Niderla had two solo blocks to go along with her three block assists. Ovalle assisted with four blocks.
"Jalen and Mio work really well together," added Forchtner. "They just create the seam to where the ball hardly gets down.
"We want people to have to fight to get the ball against us. We did that in our first match and I just hope that it carries on for the rest of the season."