(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
COLORADO SPRINGS — The Legend Titans looked defeated. They were down 2-0 to Grand Junction and were one set away from suffering a loss at their first match at the Region 8 playoffs at Rampart.
Hannah Haveman was suffering from a back issue that had her laying on a bag of ice when she wasn’t gutting it out on the floor.
But she toughed it out. And the Titans battled back to beat the Tigers in five sets. Then they beat Rampart 25-21, 25-19, 24-26, 19-25 and 15-13 in another five-set thriller.
And away to state they go.
“This is the third year I’ve gone,” Haveman said. “It feels amazing every single time.”
But she had to labor through the journey a little bit more than she wanted. Legend watched Rampart sweep Grand Junction 25-23, 25-15 and 25-13 to start the day, giving the home team an instant edge.
The Titans then took the floor and were sloppy at the beginning, committing far too many errors for a team looking to reach the Denver Coliseum.
“We kind of got down on ourselves,” Katie Turner said. “We were making a lot of errors and we took Grand Junction for granted.”
Down 2-0, the girls realized they had to start taking things a little more seriously.
They fought, clawed and scratched their way to three consecutive wins, setting up a regional championship match with the hosting Rams.
“We got got back into it, we played our game and we had lots of energy,” Turner said. “We just had a lot of fun playing on the court.”
And they rode that wave of momentum into the match with Rampart. It didn’t help the Rams that they had a knack for starting matches slow anyway.
They had been sitting for over three hours while the Titans were loose and fresh off an adrenaline-budiling comeback.
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
So when Legend jumped out to an immediate two-set lead, it seemed like a quick final match was in the cards. It was great news for Haveman who continued to ice her back when she wasn’t on the floor.
“Since we went to five in the first match, I was really hoping we could do it in three,” she said. “As we went on, there was just so much adrenaline and I couldn’t even feel it.”
But the shift in momentum would say otherwise.
The Rams battled to win the third set 26-24 and kept that momentum rolling in the fourth. For Rampart coach Nikki Kinzer, it was just another day that her girls were getting off to a slow start.
“We’ve had a hard time starting a match all season,” she said. “So for us to come out and start 0-2 was tough. We were clearly ready, we just didn’t start the way we needed to.”
In the fifth set, both teams were so afraid of making mistakes that it was tough for either side to really seize control.
“That was a different game five than any that I’ve coached, ever,” Legend coach Verlyn Rosenthal said. “Both sides were playing not to lose. Playing safe. There were times that I was going to make different moves and I’m glad I didn’t. If we lost I would’ve hated that.”
But the Titans were able to grit it out and win the final set 15-13.
Rosenthal aims to get his team playing on the last weekend of each year and he has once against accomplished that goal.
All Legend needs now is to win four more matches to come away with a state title. And it would help if they didn’t wait to be down 2-0 in pool play before being forced to rally.
But if they learned one thing on Saturday, it’s that being on the brink of defeat can trigger a run at victory.