The set, the match, the state championship: it all came down to one final moment, but of course it was going to.
On the final day of the 2024 Colorado High School Activities Association Boys Volleyball State Championships, Mountain Vista High School and Fountain-Fort Carson High School saw each other twice, with Mountain Vista winning each time. In the second match - the state title match - the Golden Eagles won 3-1 (25-21, 25-23, 26-28, 30-28), weathering the comeback efforts after taking a 2-0 lead to begin the final match of the season.
Fountain-Fort Carson seemed determined to push the match to a fifth set and as the score continued to climb, the anticipation continued to rise. Each point generated more cheers that promptly went mute as all eyes focused on the game, knowing how big the moment was.
As the score sat 29-28, Trevor Robinson picked up the ball, walked to the backline and served. This time, the ball wouldn’t be returned as Robinson sealed the game with a service ace.
“We were confident we could put it away,” Robinson said. “We just executed like we did all season, it was a good game.”
Perhaps the perception of being the underdog is what helped Mountain Vista seal so many close sets throughout the tournament.
Every single set that Mountain Vista won — except for one set against Douglas County High School — was by six points or less. And of the seven sets that Mountain Vista and Fountain-Fort Carson played, five of them were won by three points or less.
“They were relentless,” Duncan Keane said. “They were so consistent, they were just so good.”
After going down by eight points to begin the fourth set, Mountain Vista coach Patrick Keane called a timeout to try and calm his team down.
All tournament long, the Golden Eagles found themselves in tight games. So when they once again found themselves teetering on the edge of what seemed like a coin flip game, they knew what they needed to do to pull through.
“Honestly we did the same thing,” Robinson said. “We were just doing what we did all season, we knew we had it. All we had to do was execute, they weren’t going to give it to us, so we had to earn it.”
A big part of Mountain Vista’s win came from its two setters: Duncan Keane and Kayvaun Motallebi. Robinson had 24 assists and Motallebi had 22.
Each setter found the open hitter so often, but none was open more often than Luke Colquette, who recorded 18 kills.
“We just have so many pins and middles that can put the ball away when we need to,” Motallebi said. “All of our hitters are amazing at what they do and it made it easier for us to just set and play that fast."
The growth that Mountain Vista saw from the beginning of the season is something that all of the players recognized.
The Golden Eagles knew they were going to be a good team coming into the season, but a championship seemed far fetched. As the season progressed, the wins continued to pile up for them and as the wins came, their confidence grew.
“When we were coming into the season not everybody had this in mind,” Motallebi said. “We knew we were going to be a good team, we knew we had amazing players on our team, but I think once we started to win it really started coming together.”
Now for Duncan Keane and six other seniors they get sent off into the sunset, knowing that they were a part of the history in bringing their school its very first Boys Volleyball state championship.
“This is incredible,” Duncan Keane said. “This is everything we’ve been working for this whole year. We didn't come into this thinking we would make it, but this is awesome. Everything we could have ever wanted.”