Silverado heats up to win consolation bracket at Durango Fall Classic

Silverado volleyball players rushed center court and clamored to touch their new pyramid shaped trophy on Saturday evening at Coronado High School.

No, they didn’t win the prestigious Durango Fall Classic.

But the Skyhawks do have some new hardware for their trophy case.

Silverado topped Faith Lutheran, Shadow Ridge and La Salle (Calif.) on Saturday to claim the tournament’s Challenger Division — a consolation bracket for the fourth-place teams in Friday’s pool play.

The Skyhawks posed for pictures with their new trophy and passed it among themselves to admire with fans and friends.

“I think the team that improves the most in the tournament is the team that’s the winner eventually anyways,” Silverado coach Eric Drum said. “Really we’re looking big picture. We’re looking down the road. We want to get better and that’s why we enroll in these tournaments.”

The Skyhawks picked a good one with the Durango Fall Classic, which is sponsored by Nike and widely recognized as one of the top high-school volleyball tournaments in the country.

Eight of the top 25 teams in the country came to Las Vegas for the two-day event, and Silverado took its share of lumps on Friday with losses to Marymount (Calif.) , Ralston Valley (Colo.) and Kamehameha (Hawaii).

“I think the girls weren’t sure what to expect. Probably me too,” Drum said. “I think after that pool play, even though we lost all three, we proved that we belong.”

The Skyhawks arrived to Coronado on Saturday refocused and defeated local foes Faith Lutheran and Shadow Valley in straight sets to set the stage for the 25-21, 15-25, 25-15 consolation victory over La Salle (Calif.).

Outside hitter Sydney Berenyi was a force on the perimeter with 24 kills. Middle blocker Mariah Morris had eight kills and kept several points alive with intelligent passing and playmaking. MaKenzie Carter had 11 digs and eight kills and Tehani Faitau had 37 assists.

“We weren’t expecting the big win or anything like. We actually felt like we had nothing to lose,” Berenyi said. “I think that we came more in sync. We started to work together more and our chemistry got much better on the court.”

The Skyhawks will have a few days to regroup for games against Coronado and Foothill. They’ll travel to California next weekend for another invitational, too, before returning for the remainder of conference play.

“We feel that every week is a new launch point. We want to be better on Friday that we were on Monday,” Drum said. “The girls have bought into that mentality and I think this (victory) was part of it.”