Cleveland volleyball sweeps Albuquerque High in season opener

RIO RANCHO — A week before the Cleveland Storm opened its volleyball season, head coach Charity Gomez spoke on “bringing the thunder” this year.

On opening night Tuesday, Cleveland put the Albuquerque Bulldogs in a full-on hurricane.

Gomez and the Storm swept Albuquerque High, three sets to zero, protecting their “Thunderdome” home court in front of an energetic crowd.

“That’s a tough team (Albuquerque High). I think that team is possibly a final four contender,” Gomez said. “It was our first home game, and I knew there were going to be some jitters, but just how the girls came out, I felt like we came out in pretty dominating fashion.”

Cleveland opened the match with a 25-11 set win, looking like they could coast to a home victory. But as Gomez mentioned, this Bulldogs team is not a unit to mess around with. Routinely a contender in 5A’s District 5, Albuquerque High started its season the week prior with a sweep over Del Norte.

The Bulldogs did not go away, going back and forth with the Storm in sets two and three. Self-imposed errors from Cleveland left the door open for a comeback.

“I think in the second set, we were just airing it a bit too much. We scored their first nine or eight points,” Gomez said. “We just weren’t forcing them to score their own points. And so once we kind of locked in later in the set, we just kind of moved ahead from there. But it came down to us giving free points to them.”

The next two sets were decided by five points or less, with the Storm taking them 25-20 and 25-22. The Bulldogs had some glimpses of potentially extending the match, but the Storm’s veteran attackers shut down those chances.

“We tooled the ball a lot, we tipped in some situations, which we had been working on. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, let’s just hit the ball hard, but let’s hit the ball smart,’” Gomez said. “ I felt like we really did that in that first set. A lot of tips for points; it was a lot of smart execution.”

Outside hitter Azylnn Tittmann led the way with 21 kills in her senior debut, marking the most in a single game for her high school career.

Fellow seniors Aaliyah Simpson and Miya Branaugh added some firepower alongside Azylnn, with countless hard swings coming from the bunch. Sophomore Mila Tittmann, alongside her sister, caught fire behind the end line with several service aces in the match on top of several kills.

Coming off the opening win, Cleveland will have to make sure to pack their A-game for a Thursday road trip over to Los Lunas to take on the Tigers.

“We have a lot of experience playing them, we know their style of play,” Gomez said. “We’re just going to have to clean some stuff up. We know we’re going to have to score. It’ll be a real race to 25.”

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