Cleveland volleyball sweeps Rio Rancho; match raises money for Storm athlete battling cancer

RIO RANCHO – All in all, a productive and worthy night for the Cleveland Storm volleyball team. A night with give and take, both equally satisfying.

It wasn’t just a three-game sweep of visiting Rio Rancho in a District 1-5A match that had Cleveland in excellent spirits Thursday. The 25-20, 25-16, 25-22 victory was one thing, and it was an important thing as it kept the Storm from starting 0-2 in league play.

But the match also functioned as a fundraising enterprise for one of Cleveland’s own: junior football player Marshall Logan, who is battling cancer. There were multiple signs hanging in the Cleveland gym in support of Logan.

“A great game and a really good cause,” junior outside hitter Emma Wild said. “I’m glad so many people came out.”

The fifth-ranked Storm (9-7, 1-1 in 1-5A) have been one of the more curious teams in Class 5A. Yes, Cleveland has seven losses, but it has only been beaten by three schools. The Storm is 0-3 against Los Lunas and 0-3 against Cibola, but have been perfect against most everyone else.

“I feel like personally, if we play to the best of our ability, we can beat anybody,” said Cleveland’s outstanding senior setter, Marian Hatch.

The Storm played largely a clean match against its crosstown rival, which has been a point of emphasis.

“We tried to minimize our errors and when we can get into our system, I feel like our offense is so strong and hard to defend,” Hatch said.

Indeed, Wild said, Cleveland excelled at first contact, and getting Hatch into strong setting positions throughout.

“And we were just able to put balls away and get 1-on-1s for our hitters,” Wild said.

And there some of the same grit Cleveland demonstrated late last month in coming back from two sets down against the Rams.

Rio Rancho was playing perhaps its best volleyball of the night in the third set, and the Rams were in front 14-10. But Cleveland authored a 9-1 run to lead 19-15 and closed out the match moments later on consecutive hitting errors by Rio Rancho.

“We put a lot of preparation into our serve and pass, and I think we executed really well,” Hatch said.

Cleveland has won six consecutive sets against sixth-ranked Rio Rancho (10-7, 1-1).

The Storm won the final three sets in a five-set match for third place at the recent Rio Rancho VolleyBash. And Cleveland followed that up with an impressive showing Thursday.

“We have some youth in some key spots, although we have some good senior leadership,” Cleveland coach Charity Gomez said. “When you have people that are doing these roles for the first time, it takes a while.”

First contact, Gomez said, is the key to everything in the Cleveland offense.

“We have the setter, we have all the attackers, we’re big at the net, but when we get that first contact going, we’re hard to stop,” Gomez said.

It was not immediately known how much money was raised in support of Logan and his family. Thursday’s event was organized rather quickly over the last couple of weeks.