Volleyball’s playoff hopes dwindle with loss (video)

The Maricopa High School Rams volleyball team suffered another blow to their playoff hopes after losing their fourth straight match Thursday night.

Maricopa hosted the top ranked team in the Arizona Interscholastic Association Division III Volleyball Power Rankings, Chandler Preparatory Academy. The top-ranked Titans lived up to the hype and showed tremendous skill against the faltering Rams.

Maricopa stepped up to the level of competition and played well against Chandler Prep, but by the end of the game, the Titans beat the Rams in straight sets.

“They’re having a mental battle right now,” MHS volleyball head coach Lashieka Holley said. “They know exactly what they need to do and they know we have all the components to do what we need to do. And when these top teams come in we step up and play and we frazzle them, we just don’t finish.”

Nearly a month ago, the Rams reached as high as 15 in the AIA Power Rankings. Since then, Maricopa has won only once over their last eight matches and dropped out of the top 32.

With just four matches and a tournament left on the schedule, Maricopa’s chances of climbing back into the playoff picture are very low. Even if they were to pull upsets over their higher ranking final opponents, the Rams would need quite a bit of help from other teams pulling upsets in order to earn a playoff spot.

“Even if we were to pull off these next four games, we’d still have a long shot of getting in (the playoffs),” They’re must-wins, but at the end of the day we still don’t know if we would get in. We needed to pull off this one today (against Chandler Prep).”

The Rams will hit the road for their next three games before returning for their final regular season game against Apache Junction on Oct. 29.