Early defeat ousts spikers

Falling to White River, the Spartans finish in top 12.

EVERETT – It was not the way the Bainbridge volleyball team wanted, or thought they would go out.

Falling to White River in the opening round of the State 3A tournament, the Spartans were relegated to consolation play and rallied for a win before falling again, just missing the top eight.

“We were a little flat,” head coach Julie Miller said. “We couldn’t get in sync. When one thing was working, another thing wasn’t working, and that was the main factor in us not getting a lot of kills, or digging a lot of balls.”

The Spartans split the first two games with the White River Hornets in their opening match at the Everett Events Center, then won the third game 25-10 and had a 20-7 lead in the fourth.

But they couldn’t put it away, as the Hornets came back to win 25-23 and take the fifth game 15-12.

Bainbridge came back in the consolation round to sweep the Tumwater Thunderbirds 25-16, 25-13 and 25-18 on Friday night, but were defeated on Saturday morning by the Cedarcrest Red Wolves in four games.

In the first game against White River, Bainbridge didn’t get many kills as the Hornets took an 8-2 lead. After a timeout to calm their nerves, the Spartans slowly pushed back to take the lead at 15-14. The Hornets fought back behind kills from their outside hitters Shealun Campisi and Kendra Paulson to take the first game.

In the second, Bainbridge came back three times behind the scoring of Sabrina Tan and Hannah Stuart and blocks by Kelcey Dunaway. Bainbridge won the game on a Tan ace.

After trading ties early in the third, Bainbridge took control off of blocks from Stuart and Marijke Schwarz-Smith. They never looked back as White River struggled getting the ball over the net. The Spartans scored 11 straight in the fourth game en route to a 20-7 lead, but White River went on a 18-3 run as Bainbridge suddenly couldn’t handle a serve and Campisi got back on track.

Miller said she’s seen it before – not that it made the results any less painful.

“I’ve been a part of it on both ends,” she said. “It’s just a couple of plays, and you just can’t get it back. You start second guessing everything you’re doing, then you get supersafe and they just keep coming back at you.”

The deciding fifth game was a close contest. Bainbridge took the lead several times, but White River kept creeping back to tie it, then took the lead for good at 11-10. Campisi scored the last two points.

After the final loss Saturday, Miller reminded her team of the positives.

“They talked about ‘we should’ve won’ but it’s over so why sit and dwell on it?” Miller said. “Look at the overall season. They had a sucessful season and that’s the big part.

“Only eight teams get to place (and take home trophies), so it’s not like we’re the only ones.”

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