La Cueva sweeps Cleveland for metro volleyball crown

It’s safe to say the La Cueva Bears were not your ordinary No. 3 seed at the Albuquerque Metro Volleyball Championships.

Perhaps slightly taken aback at being seeded behind Cleveland and Albuquerque High, or perhaps more because this is what the Bears tend to do in this event, La Cueva rolled to its third metro title in four seasons, sweeping Cleveland on Saturday night at Eldorado.

The scores were 25-20, 25-17, 25-20.

“I think we just came in here, we had a really good mindset, and we knew what we wanted to get done and we just did it,” said 5-foot-9 junior outside hitter Jula Utash, who had 16 kills, several of them boomers up the line.

“We’ve been battling with Cleveland the last three years … we knew what we wanted to do, and that was beat them in three,” Utash said. It was a memorable day for the Utash family; her cousin J.J., a standout baseball player at Los Lunas High School, on Saturday announced his college commitment to the University of Texas.

The well-rounded performance by the Bears (10-1) just made it a difficult climb for Cleveland (5-3), which lost for the second time this season to La Cueva.

It didn’t help matters for Cleveland in the first set that the Storm had some real serve issues; there were five service errors, all of them sailing long, in a set they lost by five points.

Utash fired a couple of kills early in the second set for a 7-3 edge, she also added an ace during a 4-0 stretch that upped the lead to 15-6. Utash also ended the set with a kill from the outside.

Cleveland’s best set was the third set, and the Storm led 19-17 at one stage. But then La Cueva scored the next six points. Utash took over with three kills and a tip winner during that 6-0 run.

As with a power hitter in baseball, whose contact just sounds different, the ball just sounds different coming out of Utash’s right arm.

“She’s powerful,” La Cueva coach Steve Archibeque said. “She just sees the court so well.”

Teammate Leah Jones’ kill was the match clincher for the Bears.

“I feel like we’re both the same skill level team, whose ever energy is better that night is who is gonna win,” said Jones, like Utash a 5-9 junior hitter. “We knew we had to do that.”

Both Jones and Utash benefited from the excellent performance of freshman setter Charlie Ferguson.

“We have a lot of strong players that know how to get things done,” Utash said.

Said Archibeque: “We have enough firepower across the net. We’re able to mix things up.”

And Archibeque moments later mentioned his team’s seed. The Bears swept AHS in Friday’s semifinals.

“Everyone,” he said, “had put La Cueva out.”