| Meagan Garvin spikes one during last season’s state championships. The Lady Dinos have started ’07 very strong. |
Coach Cristen Johnson knew the best way to get her team in top playing form was to put them up against tough challenges early in the season even if it meant that they would take some losses. So the team headed to the Mountain Classic tournament in Lehi over the weekend to face some of the best the state had to offer.
As a warm up, the team traveled to Park City on Thursday, August 22 to take on the Miners. The Dinos took the match in five games. Easily winning the first two games 25-19 and 25-14, the squad let Park City back in the match with a 22-25 loss in game three. Game four became a fight, but Carbon held on to win 26-24 to take the match.
After a day to regroup, Carbon squared off with Taylorsville on Friday afternoon. The Dinos played hard and again easily took the first game 25-12. T-Ville won game two, 22-25 and the Dinos won game three 25-22. Knowing they had much more volleyball to play, Carbon shut it down with a 25-17 win in game four. Garvin led the team with 19 kills and four service aces.
The team moved on to face Snow Canyon. Snow had been a 3A powerhouse before moving up to 4A. It took the Dinos five games to finish off Snow and every game was a hard fought battle to the end. In a seesaw affair, Snow won game one 26-24 with the Dinos coming back for game two, 25-23. Then Snow recaptured the lead with a game three 23-25 victory and Carbon had to take game four 25-17 to stay in the match. Game five went to the Dinos 15-13 for their second win of the tournament.
On Saturday, Carbon had to face arch rival and 3A powerhouse, Morgan at Lone Peak High School. Matches on Saturday were limited to three games, so it would be harder to stay in the match if you got down early. The Dinos took game one 25-15, but lost their momentum when Morgan took game two 25-20. It didn’t seem to take Morgan long to finish off Carbon in the final game with a 15-10 win.
Looking to get back on their feet, Carbon squared off with Pleasant Grove. They let game one slip away with a 21-25 loss. But in true Dino fashion, they came back and won the next two 25-20 and 15-13 to rack up their third win. The Carbon offense had a balanced team attack led by Garvin with nine kills and Julia Potts with six.
Cottonwood High would be the momentum stopper for the Dinos when they downed them in two convincing matches. Carbon lost both 18-25 and 17-25. Ericka Potts managed four aces in the match.
In the final set of the tournament for the Dinos, Freemont took three straight from a worn out Carbon squad. Carbon went down 22-25, 12-25, and 16-25 to finish in seventh place out of 16 teams. Most of the competition was 4A and 5A squads and even then, mostly the best in the state.
Coach Johnson was mostly happy with how her team performed. “We beat Pleasant Grove, who is ranked second in their division, and we beat Snow Canyon. We should have beat Morgan, but this shows us what we have yet to work on.” Carbon is ranked third for all 3A volleyball teams and eighteenth in the state overall.
The team will have played a home game against Uintah on Wednesday. No scores were available by press time. September 11 will be the first chance to see the team on their home floor as they take on Ben Lomand before beginning region play on September 20.