Green Mountain girls volleyball continues to spike league foes

LAKEWOOD — It has been more than two years since Green Mountain’s girls volleyball has lost a Class 4A Jeffco League game.

The Rams — No. 9 in the 4A CHSAA Selection & Seeding Index — ran their conference winning streak to 23 games with a dominating 3-0 home victory over Conifer on Thursday night.

“That’s awesome. That’s crazy,” Green Mountain senior Marae Reilly said after being told the impressive winning streak. “I did not know that.”

Green Mountain’s last league loss was against rival D’Evelyn back on Sept. 28, 2021. The Rams finished second to the Jaguars in the league race two years ago before going 9-0 in conference play last season to win the 4A Jeffco title.

“I can’t really focus on that or pay attention to,” Green Mountain coach Melanie Watkins said of the Rams’ conference winning streak. “I just hope we stay healthy, stay focused and stay on track for each match that comes at us.”

Green Mountain (14-2, 7-0 in 4A Jeffco) took care of business against Conifer with the Rams’ sixth straight 3-0 league victory. Golden is the only conference foe that took a set against Green Mountain during league play.

Conifer (7-10, 2-5) did score the first point in all three sets, but Green Mountain rolled to 25-15, 25-14, 25-19 set wins. The senior-laden Rams have actually only dropped five sets in conference play during the current 23-game league winning streak.

Marae Reilly had eight kills to spark the Rams in the opening set. Her younger sister — junior Ashlynn Reilly — took over in the second set, which allowed Watkins to give her bench some playing time in the third set.

“Many of our league teams graduated a lot of their contributing seniors last year,” Watkins said of the Rams dominating league so far this season. “That is going to be my situation after this year. We will sort of rebuild next year with losing eight seniors after this year with the majority of them starters.”

The Rams can official wrap up their back-to-back league titles Thursday, Oct. 19, win a road victory over Standley Lake (16-3, 6-1). The Gators have won 9 of 10 matches heading into next week’s showdown in Westminster.

“I think we are doing a better job now of really engaging and focusing on what we want after league,” Marae said. “Obviously, we want league and keep working for that. But it is more about what happens after that.”

Green Mountain will have to deal with some adversity as the regular season wraps up. Senior Kendall Morrison suffered an injury before the league game Thursday. Watkins said they aren’t sure yet how serious the injury is for Morrison, one of the Rams’ starting outside hitters and third on the team in kills.

“Eva did great today,” Marae said of senior Eva Bellot stepping into a starter at outside hitter against Conifer. “She hasn’t had a ton of court time, but she came in tonight and did what she had to do. She did a great job.”

While winning the conference title last year was a huge accomplishment for the Rams, losing a 5-set regional final to Durango at Green Mountain High School wasn’t the way Green Mountain wanted to end the season.

“I wouldn’t call it pressure. I’d call it excitement,” Marae said of the postseason coming up in a few weeks where the Rams could again host a regional tournament. “Last year losing to Durango sucked. That was hard. We have been preparing to face those harder situations.”

Watkins likes the chemistry of her team as Green Mountain wraps up the regular season at the Colorado Volleyball Invite at the World Arena in Colorado Springs on Oct. 27 and 28.

“They don’t seem to have pressure. At least they don’t show it,” Watkins said about the Rams attempting to clear the regional hurdle and advance to the state tournament. “That is their goal to get out of regionals and make the state tournament. I’m hoping for their sake this year that we do get over that last step of our trip to get to the state tournament.”