By Greg Perkins Snowflake’s tremendous volleyball season came to a close in the semi-final round of the 3A state playoffs. Their 3-1 loss to AZ College Prep was their only non-tournament loss of the season. Snowflake put together an 18-0 regular season mark and went 33-11 overall including all invitational tournaments. The Lobos entered the state tournament as the No. 1 overall seed and quickly took care of No. 16 Benjamin Franklin in the first round. The Lobos won the match 25-18, 25-11 and 25-6. Round two was another victory over eighth ranked Monument Valley in three games. The Lobos won in dominating fashion 25-14, 25-8 and 25-10. That win put them into the semi-finals where they met up with AZ College Prep. Snowflake started out in fine form winning the first game 25-11 and held a lead late in the second game of the match before the tide started to turn. The fifth seeded Knights rallied to win the second game 26-24. They then finished off Snowflake’s season with a 25-19 game three win and a 25-21 win in the fourth and final game of the Lobo season. AZ College Prep went on to lose the championship match to No. 3 Northwest Christian in three games. The Crusaders from Northwest Christian were terrific in the tournament, not losing a single game en-route to the title. They are also very young, with only one senior on the roster and will have to be the favorites to repeat the 3A title next year. Snowflake is also relatively young. Five seniors will leave Coach Ramage’s program but he will potentially have nine returning players for next year and should be favored to once again be a state title contender.
