Green Mountain girls volleyball slams down 3-peat

LAKEWOOD — For the third straight season, Green Mountain girls volleyball is alone at the top of the Class 4A Jeffco League.

The Rams not only clinched a 3-peat for the conference title Thursday night with a 3-1 victory over Standley Lake, but Green Mountain extended its 4A Jeffco League winning streak to 32 games dating back to the 2021 season.

“It feels amazing,” Green Mountain senior Ashlynn Reilly said of the 3-peat and conference winning streak. “It is good knowing I’m going out of here having won league three times in a row.”

It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Green Mountain (14-6, 7-0 in league) this season. The Rams graduated a good majority of its pieces from their back-to-back league championship teams. 

“At the beginning we really didn’t know,” Reilly said of the outlook at the start of the season on winning another league title. “It was a whole new team after losing a bunch of players (to graduation). We had a whole new team basically. The underclassmen picked it up and stepped into roles.”

The final obstacle to the 3-peat was the upstart Gators (16-4, 6-1) who also entered the showdown for the league title having not dropped a set in league play, just like the Rams. Standley Lake was on a 10-game winning streak to boot with a talented squad that features just a single senior. 

“I’ll be honest. I was very nervous coming in tonight,” Green Mountain coach Melanie Watkins said. “Standley Lake has posted some fantastic numbers. Her (Standley Lake coach Janelle Bennett) athletes have been playing awesome all year long. Their defense is incredible. I know their defense has been frustrating teams.”

The Gators took the opening set 25-23 on Green Mountain’s home court. However, the Rams reeled off three straight set wins — 25-15, 25-18 and 25-18 — to make history. 

“We came in knowing it was for the league championship,” Reilly said. “I think we were playing not to make mistakes instead of playing to win. After the first set we just let loose and let it go.”

The 6-foot-3 outside hitter got the Rams going in the second set with a rocket kills as Green Mountain jumped out to a commanding 14-6 lead. Reilly went over 300 kills on the season.

“After Ashlynn settled down after that first game, it was Ashlynn as usually after that,” Watkins said of Reilly, who has verbally committed to play volleyball at Santa Clara University. 

Green Mountain closed out the match in the fourth set with senior Elia Johnson winning the first four points on her serve. Sophomores Addie Evans, Cadyn Cavanaugh and junior Avery Brennan each had a block in the deciding set for the Rams.

Junior setter Neva Cook fittingly set up Reilly for the game-winning kill on match point to close out the match.

“I’ve had some fantastic families with athletes come through this program the past three to four years,” Watkins said of the league winning streak and league 3-peat. “I’ve just had some talented, talented athletes in the program.”

One hurdle Green Mountain would like to get past is to qualify for the state tournament. The Rams have hosted regionals tournaments that pass two years, but haven’t been able to win the regional to qualify for the state tournament.

It could be even a tougher road this season with the Rams likely not hosting a regional. Green Mountain was No. 19 in the CHSAA Selection and Seeding Index after the win. The top-12 seeds host regionals on Nov. 8 and/or Nov. 9.

“Seeing the inside of it (Denver Coliseum) would be amazing for me and this team. It’s an experience that this program has never seen before,” Reilly said of attempting to qualify for the 4A state tournament. “It would make history.”

Green Mountain will play three games next week in a round-robin tournament Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The Rams will host Standley Lake, Conifer and Evergreen in games that don’t count toward the league standings.

“We just have to keep doing what we are doing right now,” Watkins said of preparing for regionals. “Try to play our best volleyball coming up.”