ADNA — For the second time this season, the Adna volleyball team came out firing to force defending district champs Kalama onto the back foot. But this time around, the first shot couldn’t quite land, and ended up taking just about all the Pirates had in their tank, as the Chinooks came back to roll 26-24, 25-10, 25-16 in the semifinals of the 2B District 4 tournament.
Playing in front of a home crowd despite being the lower seed, the Pirates led nearly the hole way in the first set going up by as many as four points at multiple points and leading 21-17. Despite a quick Kalama run, Adna still worked the game down to 24-21, off of a Parker Feist ace, the Pirates’ seventh ace of the set.
“I think at that point, they believed they were capable of beating Kalama,” Adna coach Wendie Dotson said. “Then we faltered, and Kalama just kept going.”
Feist put a serve out to give the Chinooks the ball back. An attacking error on Adna made it 24-23, and out of a timeout, a foul tied the set at 24-24. Kalama’s offense kicked into gear at just the right time, and two kills later, the Chinooks took the set, capping a 5-0 run.
Coming into the day with a few players under the weather, the Pirates simply had a hard time picking themselves up off the mat.
“I think that basically we used every bit of our energy, what we had,” Dotson said.
After hitting .220 in the first set — led by five kills apiece by Danika Hallom and Kendall Humphrey — the Pirates racked up 12 attack errors in the second to dip deep into the negatives at -.241. A 7-0 Kalama run turned a bad start into a nightmare set at 20-5, and from there there was little Adna could do to turn things around.
“(We were) just being out of sorts, maybe trying a bit too hard instead of, not really cautious, but smarter,” Dotson said.
That trend would only continue in the third set which, while closer, was never closer than six points late.
Humphrey led the Pirates with 10 kills and also added nine digs. Hallom dug up a team-high 10 digs to go along with eight kills, while Feist had nine digs.
Brooklyn Loose dished out 13 assists and also had four digs, two aces, and a block. Gaby Guard came in with eight assists, but also put down six kills.
Falling to the third-place bracket, Adna still has a good chance to make the state tournament, with five of the remaining six teams earning bids. The Pirates can punch their ticket Saturday at Raymond with a win over either Ocosta or the Seagulls, which would also put them into the third-place match. If they lose that game, they’d fall to a winner-to-state fifth-place match later in the day.
“Most of the season, if we’d get in a hole, they’d point-by-point take it away and be successful, they didn’t let that bother them,” Dotson said. “I think they’re the type of team that will go to the next one, and be aggressive about the next one.”
