2002 West Central Districts

West Central Districts ... King Teams Redeemed

10 Nov. 2002:  The District Tournament was a terrific event.  The bleachers in both Fife gyms were filled close to capacity for the pool sessions, the parking lot had school van's with "On to State" soaped on their windows, the fans were loud and enthusiastic, and the volleyball was first rate.  The setup for this tournament was like a movie script.  The Pierce Division had dominated their King Division counterparts in the previous week's Seamount League Tournament and this had shocked the favored King teams.  And newcomer Sequim, taking Franklin Pierce's 8th seed with their victory in the pigtail match on Tuesday, brought a much improved version of last year's team.  In addition to their top ten ranking and their outstanding setter, Chelsea Pettibone, Sequim's middle/outside hitters had developed a powerful middle attack, and their block was very effective.  Megan Thompson, #26, was particularly notable for her offensive and blocking skills, and her general court skills.

Pool Play

Play started at 9 am (not 10:15 am as reported in the papers,) and the first matches set the tone for the whole day.  In Pool A (Blue), Divisional rivals White River and Peninsula met for the third time this season.  It was a two game match, but Peninsula took White River to duce before finally falling 16-14 in the second game.  Although a loss, this was a big improvement for Peninsula in comparison to their regular season results.  Meanwhile, Mt. Rainier and Sequim in Pool B (Gold) battled for over an hour and half, with Mt. Rainier ultimately prevailing, 15-13, 12-15, 15-9.  Mt. Rainier appeared to have resolved some of their passing difficulties encountered in the League tournament, and the return of Kelsey Rapp to the lineup in the opposite position gave the Rams a little more offensive punch as Kelsey set Emily Melver for what was to prove to be many scores over the course of the day.

The second round of pool play saw Fife defeat defeat Highline 15-6, 15-11, and Kennedy beat Washington 15-3, 15-12.  The third round of pool play in the Gold Pool featured a match of Divisional rivals Mt. Rainier and Highline with no surprises, the Rams winning 15-2, 15-11.  The Blue pool match was Kennedy versus White River.  Like Highline, Kennedy had just played a match, and perhaps the Lancers were a bit winded, but for whatever reason, White River was able to dominate the play with their middle attack, and Kennedy was not able to stop them.  The match was closer than the scores suggest, 15-11, 15-4, but it was a solid victory for White River.  Of particular note, White River's setter Roxy Ross was able to run some up-tempo attacks in the middle even with fairly marginal passing.  Ross had 25 assists in this match, and middle hitters Kyla Wytko and Sara Berndorf combined for 14 kills, and Shealun Campisi had 12 kills from the outside hitter position. 

The fourth round of play saw two fresh opponents in each pool, Washington versus Peninsula in the Blue Pool, and Fife versus Sequim in the Gold Pool.   At this point in the tournament, both Blue Pool opponents were battling for their first match win, and in the Gold Pool, Fife had one victory, and Sequim had lost to Mt. Rainier.  Sequim was in a "must win" situation if it was to finish in the top two, and Fife still had hopes of winning the Gold Pool.

In the Blue Pool, survival was the issue.  Washington had defeated Peninsula in both their Pierce Division regular season matches, but Peninsula had taken Washington to a fifth game in their first season match, and lost in three in their rematch with one of the games going to duce, 16-14.  So it was not obvious how this would turn out, particularly with the improvements Peninsula was showing.  And the match proved to be closely contested, Washington ultimately winning 15-3, 5-15, 15-7, behind the steady court play and offensive pressure provided by Junior Michelle Weydert.

In the Gold Pool, Fife and Sequim had not played each other this year, but this marked the third year the two had met at Districts.  Last year, Fife knocked Sequim out of States with a 2-1 match victory (7-15, 15-7, 16-14) in pool play, and the year previous, Sequim had defeated Fife to go on to State.  So this match had a bit of history.  Sequim ended up winning in two, 15-7, 15-7, but the match was much closer than the score suggests.  The Sequim block was particularly effective against Fife, and Sequim's Marielle Lopes and Megan Thompson were both able to score a number of kills from the middle.  But despite their difficulties, Fife was tenacious.  In the first game, for example, Sequim had surged to a 14-4 lead.  Not quitting, Fife hung on with a desperate strength, and it wasn't until over a full rotation later that Fife finally yielded game point.

The tournament had been scheduled assuming and hour and fifteen minutes per match, but the schedule had begun slipping with the Mt. Rainier/Sequim match, and with the conclusion of the Washington/Peninsula match, the start times were running over half an hour late.  But for Fife and Washington, the start of round five came all too soon, and it must have seemed like the twentieth mile of a marathon.  Both had just played difficult rounds against an equally matched opponent, and both now faced the number one seed in their pool.

Washington played pretty sluggishly in their first game against White River, losing 6-15.  But they seemed to gather a second wind, and White River seemed to tire, with the result that Washington took game two, 15-13.  But White River rallied and took the third game 15-2 to secure a first in the Blue Pool.  In the Gold Pool, Mt. Rainier also locked up a first place finish over the scrappy Fife girls, 15-6, 15-8.

The final round of pool play saw Kennedy against Peninsula in the Blue Pool, and Highline versus Sequim in Gold.  The Kennedy/Peninsula match was a replay of a League crossover round held ten days previously.  The Peninsula girls continued to show a lot of improvement, and they gave the Lancers a much better match.  But they still lost 15-9, 15-7.  With this result, Kennedy finished second behind White River in the Blue Pool.  Washington came in third, and Peninsula was eliminated.  Meanwhile, Highline with some aggressive middle play by Siri Wuotila managed to stage a comeback late in the second game against Sequim.  Some of the Kennedy coaches and players, having finished their match with Peninsula, and knowing that they would likely face Sequim next, became short-term Pirate fans while the rally held.  But Sequim gathered its forces and finally halted Highline's hopes of throwing the Gold Pool into one of the dreaded three-way-ties for second place.  Winning the match 15-3, 15-12, Sequim finished second behind Mt. Rainier, and ahead of Fife.  Highline was eliminated with the loss.

Playoffs

The extensive pool play was followed by a very brief playoff.  The District Championships proved to be a replay of the previous week's Seamount League Championship in which White River had defeated Mt. Rainier.  In the League Championship, the Rams had battled fiercely in the first game, but after falling 16-18, they seemed to lose heart in the subsequent games.  Shealun Campisi of White River had been able to run off long scoring runs with her low hard serve, and Mt. Rainier lost the match without too much of a struggle.

But Mt. Rainier was a team transformed.  Despite losing the first game 5-15, the Rams did not panic or show any signs of quitting.  Mt. Rainier has a very powerful front row during the part of the rotation that features Monana Sau and Jaime Anderson.  A week ago it struggled when these girls were in the back row.  But in this decisive match, the girls in the weaker offensive rotation began to score points and side-outs with their block, and Emily Melver and Anderson used a back-row attack to good effect.  Repeatedly Juna Alvarez, Emily Johnson and Melver used some smart blocking to shut-down White River's middle attack, which had been so effective earlier in the day against Kennedy.  The blocking proved to be the difference.  White River's middle battery of Wytko and Berndorf were held to a total of 10 kills, and Campisi was held to 5.  For the whole match, Ross was able to deliver 22 assists to her Hornets, while Melver had 35 assists.   Melver also had 7 blocks.  Anderson, the Rams powerful outside hitter, scored 22 kills, several from the back-row.  The result, Mt. Rainier won the match, the District Championship, and the number one seed to States.

    Finals:  Mt. Rainier defeated White River:  5-15, 15-12, 15-10.

The match for the 3rd place seed saw Kennedy play Sequim.  The winner of this match was guaranteed a berth at States, and perhaps best of all at this point, the girls would be done for the day.  The loser had to sit out a round of play, and then play the winner of the Blue 3rd versus Gold 3rd match for the final, fourth seed to States.  Kennedy played the first game fairly even with Sequim until their setter, Courtney Clark, suffered a sprained ankle.  She finished the game, but was unable to continue.  Defensive specialist Lauren Zeigler replaced Clark in the second game, and the Lancers were competitive, but they could not get past Sequim.

    3rd Place Match:  Sequim defeated Kennedy, 15-9, 15-12.

The loser-out match of the 3rd place finishers in the pools was a rematch of the precious week's Seamount League match for 3rd seed.  Once again Fife reversed the regular season results by defeating Washington, this time with scores of 15-3, 14-16, and 15-5.  Fife was led in this victory by Ashley Walters who hammered away from her outside hitter spot with great strength and consistency.  The second game saw Washington come back from a formidable deficit under the inspired play of Michelle Weydert.  But it wasn't enough.

    4th Place Qualifier Match:  Fife defeated Washington, 15-3, 14-16, 15-5.

The last match of the day was for the fourth and final seed to the State Tournament.  Kennedy arrived at this point by finishing second in the Blue Pool, defeating Washington 15-12, 15-8, and then losing to Sequim 9-15, 12-15 in the match for 3rd place overall.  Fife had finished third in their pool, losing to Sequim 7-15, 7-15, and had then defeated Washington in three in the qualifier round.  It is hard to imagine teams with more similar records.  And the week before, Fife had defeated Kennedy in the Seamount League Tournament, 11-15, 15-13, 15-13.  But now both teams were tired, Fife had just finished a three game match against Washington, and Kennedy had lost their setter in the match against Sequim.

The first game saw Kennedy surge to 14-5 lead.  Zeigler was doing her job as backup setter with great poise and confidence, but then fatigue began to hit the other Lancers.  They hit in the net, short-armed spikes, missed serve, and generally let Fife back into the game.  Finally with the score 14-14, Gates managed to block Fife for the go-ahead point, and then Fife made an overlap (rotation) error on the game-point serve, which was in the net, but not before the foul was called.  And so Kennedy barely escaped with a win.

Game two began with what looked like a race with exhaustion on both sides of the net.  Kennedy surged to a 6-2 lead in the first ten minutes of play.  But then fell behind 8-14, as Fife managed to overcome their fatigue and passed well and hit smart.  Even Zeigler, who had looked really solid throughout the first game, made a couple of bad choices and pushed some release sets too close to the net.  At this point, Fife looked like it was going to run away with the game, and perhaps the match.   Then Kennedy began catching up with a Gates kill, an ace, and another score by Gates on a dink.  But after a Fife side-out, Gates was in the net, and Fife won the game 15-11.

But Kennedy was now recovering its strength, and in the third game the Kennedy hitters began to come to life.  Stepping out to a 8-3 lead, Kennedy looked like a team reborn.  Fife's last point was scored with an ace, making the score 8-4 Kennedy's favor.  But then Gates scored a hard kill for a side-out.  It was the beginning of the end for Fife.  Gates next scored the 10th (kill,) 11th (block,) and 13th (kill) points with an ace serve for the intervening 12th point.  Fife didn't quit, and Ashley Walters continued to hammer away on the outside, but it was too much for the Trojans.  Kills by Jennifer Patnode and Ellen Soltendieck helped finish the game.  Zielger was credited with 30 assists for this match, Gates had 14 kills, and Patnode followed with 11.  Fife passed well throughout.

    4th Seed to State Match:  Kennedy defeated Fife, 16-14, 11-15, 15-4.

Good luck to you all.  And thank you for a great season!

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Last modified: 11/29/05