Ganado netters bag Rehoboth Invite title

REHOBOTH, N.M.

Collectively, Paige Boling, JaeLynn Curley, Mariah Cook and the rest of the Ganado Lady Hornets were in sync at the Rehoboth Invitational.

The Lady Hornets swept through the eight-team tournament as they claimed this year’s championship title after beating Ramah 25-21, 25-18, 25-14 in last Saturday’s finals.

“I felt that we played good and we played as a team,” Boling said, adding that this tournament brought them more together as they get ready to head into league play tonight with Show Low.

“It really helped us grow as a team,” Cook chimed in. “We gained a lot from this. We learned what we need more practice on.”

Curley said she was surprised with how well they competed and she credited the revamped defense that head coach Jerome Burns installed.
“For this tournament we picked up a lot of balls,” she said.

Those digs led to opportunities at the net for Ganado as they finished the championship game with 31 kills with Curley putting away a dozen kills.
“Our passes were really good,” Burns said. “And if we can execute our defense we can play with any team.”

For much of the match, the Hornets played with an open net. It’s not too often that a team sees that but it gave Ganado a chance to work on mixing up their offense.

“It’s good to work on tipping and rolling the ball,” Burns said. “A lot of people like attacking the ball but I think placing the ball is more important.

“Sometimes its all about the finesse,” he added.

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