It wasn't quite the perfect season that happened in two other classifications, but nobody from Cheyenne Mountain was complaining Saturday.

The Indians polished off the other two most talented teams in Class 4A, Mullen and Roosevelt, to capture the first state volleyball championship in school history. Only a road loss to Columbine, a 5A school, marred Cheyenne’s regular-season record, but the Indians still finished up with an impressive 29-2 mark for the year.

In the title match, Cheyenne defeated Mullen 25-16, 25-19, 25-16, as the Mustangs made plenty of errors and never got their attack meshing for long.

Cheyenne started out the tournament on Friday with a heartbreaking five-set loss to Montrose, but rebounded and still took the No. 1 seed out of pool play. The Indians came back with easy three-set wins over Windsor and Mullen, also sweeping Lewis-Palmer in the semifinals.

The finals were more of the same with the Indians sweeping Mullen.

“Mullen is a good team, we’re just very proud of how we played,” Indians coach David Barkley said. “They just peaked at the right time. My setter (his daughter Ellyn) just delivered the ball to them, we passed well and both my outsides, even the freshman, got a lot of kills. I’m so proud of them.”

So, how did the seemingly slow-starting Indians recover from that Friday setback?

“Really, it all had to do with energy,” Cheyenne senior Holly Hutchison said. “It’s so loud in here (at the Denver Coliseum) and my team came out so strong and came out lots better (Saturday).”

“We had only one loss before Friday and (the Montrose defeat) pushed us even harder,” Laura Brodie said. “We believe in each other. You’ve got to find the energy and we did.”

The Indians rely most on running the middle, which means Brodie and Hutchison is dependent on the best serve receive for Ellyn Barkley to go to her seniors.

“We passed really well,” Hutchison said. “We played about the same (against Mullen the second time), but it felt a lot better.”

The Indians were led with 12 kills from Brodie, who missed the chance to have her older sister Andrea see her play.

Andrea’s University of Colorado-Colorado Springs team was on a road trip to play Nebraska-Kearney.

However, Laura will join her sister next season playing for UCCS and has bragging rights as a state champion.

Besides Brodie, Cheyenne also got eight kills from junior outside hitter Kendall Gaffney, a 5-foot-10 junior and seven from Janae Vander Ploeg, the 5-10 freshman coach Barkley referred to earlier. Hutchison also had seven kills in the final.

With so many upsets early on (No. 3 Roosevelt also went down to No. 6 Lewis-Palmer in pool play, determining the semifinalists was looking like an advanced math class. However, Barkley pointed out his team’s only loss was in five sets and the two wins were in three sets, so that left the Indians in the top position.

Mullen, which barely pulled out a pool play win against Montrose, was the second team, but Pool II needed a one-set playoff between Lewis-Palmer and Berthoud that the Rangers won 25-20. That meant Lewis-Palmer had to play six sets with a total of only 30 minutes of rest before meeting the Indians.

Mullen took care of Roosevelt in the other semifinal, 22-25, 17-25, 20-25, 25-17, 15-12, while Cheyenne breezed through the Rangers, 25-20, 25-14, 25-12.