1A Girls Volleyball: McClave Wins Its First-Ever State Championship

DENVER – For the first time in a long time, there’s a new champion in Class 1A girls volleyball.

On Saturday night at the Denver Coliseum, the McClave Cardinals won 25-22, 25-20, 19-25, 25-22 over No. 1 seed and four-time defending champion Merino in the 1A state championship match. Not only did the victory end a four-year dominant run for the Rams, it was also the first in the history of the McClave program.

“I’m just so incredibly proud of this team and how hard they’ve worked to put the heart and dedication into creating something like this,” McClave head coach Melissa Steinbrunn said. “There’s a lot of cousins on this team. There’s a lot of family members on this team. Their mommas played together on this same court and never got it done. To bring something home to our community after this winning year for this program, I’m just super proud of them.”

Not only had Merino (26-2) won the last four 1A titles, the Rams are second all-time with 15 girls volleyball titles. McClave’s victory was only Merino’s third loss in the last four years. The Rams’ other two losses during that span were to Fleming.

Saturday’s title match victory was also a redemptive moment for McClave (24-6), which suffered a 3-0 defeat at the hands of the same Merino squad earlier in the tournament on Friday.

“No one saw us coming,” Steinbrunn said. “We came in as the No. 5 and everybody looked past us and kind of thought we were almost a joke. We called it the revenge tour 2024 because everybody that we matched up against had beaten us earlier in the season, and so we wanted to beat them all. We hadn’t had a chance to see Merino until we got here and they swept us when we got here. We wanted to come and take it back.

“They’re such an incredible program. So many state championships. That was an incredible situation and it was amazing. I don’t even know how to feel right now.”

While McClave had never won a girls volleyball title prior to Saturday, the Cardinals finished runner-up three consecutive seasons from 2003-05.

To reach the championship match, Merino swept No. 11 Briggsdale. In the opposite semifinal, McClave won 3-2 over No. 3 Fleming.