YOUR AD HERE »

Basalt volleyball rallies from two down to beat Aspen for the fourth straight time

The Aspen High School volleyball team hosts Basalt on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, inside the AHS gymnasium. Basalt won, 3-2, after rallying from a 2-0 deficit.
Photo by Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times

They weren’t quite sleepwalking, but Basalt High School volleyball coach David Chadbourne certainly thought some of his players had hit the snooze button a few times early on in Thursday’s match against Aspen.

“We needed to get a couple of our outsides really woken up,” Chadbourne said. “We had some of our players that hadn’t gotten fully woken up yet in the first two sets and everybody stepped up I think in the third one, obviously. They were ready to play.”

Down 2-0 against their rivals, the Longhorns managed to turn it around en route to a come-from-behind, 3-2 non-league win over the Skiers inside the AHS gymnasium. It was the fourth straight win for Basalt in the series, dating back to Aspen’s 3-1 win early in the 2019 season.



The Skiers played a couple of close, but confident, sets to start Thursday’s match, winning 25-22 and 25-23 for a major advantage. But Basalt turned it on in the third set, winning 25-13 to get back into the match. The fourth set was dead even nearly the entire way through before BHS pulled out a 25-23 win to force the fifth set.

The Longhorns jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the fifth set and kept the Skiers at distance from there to eventually win 15-11 to complete the rally.




“I’m most proud of the fact they came back from two down, because historically with this program they might have shut down,” Chadbourne said. “I’m just so proud that these girls just stuck to it. They played their game. They got their heads back into the game and I could not be more proud of them than I am tonight.”

Basalt is coming off an impressive spring season — volleyball was delayed a few months last school year because of the pandemic — winning the league championship for the first time since the 2007 season. However, BHS did graduate most of its starting lineup — although standout setter Lexi Lowe is back — and has needed to somewhat reset the playing field this fall.

Gallery caption: Photos: Aspen volleyball vs. Basalt

So far, so good, as the Longhorns are now 2-0, including their season-opening win at Gunnison over the weekend. They are next scheduled to play Summit on Tuesday.

“Everybody is starting to mesh now, which should be really a lot of fun. We knew Aspen was going to be tough,” Chadbourne said. “When we won the league last year we knew we would have a target on our back every single time we walked into a gymnasium. The girls have to step up and they know that. So far, they are answering.”

Aspen dropped to 1-1 overall this fall. The Skiers also went to five sets in their opener last week, holding on for a 3-2 win over Glenwood Springs. AHS isn’t scheduled to play again until Sept. 11 at Rifle, after the students return from experiential education.

acolbert@aspentimes.com