TENINO — When Shauna Carpenter took over as head coach of Tenino High School’s volleyball team three years ago, she knew her team would be athletic.
Most of them are multi-sport kids and play year-round. The wild card was if the Beavers would be strong between the ears.
With a chance to stun a Class 4A opponent, they allowed one miscue to snowball.
Yelm turned in one of its worst sets of the season, only to rebound with one of its best, triumphing past Tenino 17-25, 25-18, 25-19, 14-25, 15-3 on Wednesday night in a non-league match at Tenino High School.
“We’ve struggled all season to not let it be between the ears and not let ourselves slip,” Carpenter said. “Unfortunately, it came at an inopportune time. We shouldn’t have been in that fifth set anyway.”
It marked the first five-set match of the season for the Tornados (3-5) and snapped a five-game losing streak. They played a four-set league contest at Spanaway Lake and nearly 24 hours later, clawed their way to victory.
Most of the damage came from 6-foot middle Lilly Grant, who notched five kills and three solo blocks in the decisive final set.
Yelm scored 13 of the first 14 points to seemingly put the match on ice. Grant never left the front row in any rotation changes.
“The fifth set we ran (our offense) like we should have,” Tornados head coach Heidi DeFord said. “We try to do that every set. When we do, it is pretty.”
“When your biggest player is 5-8, it is tough,” Carpenter added. “She went from tipping all night to swinging away and we didn’t respond.”
The one-sided fifth set came after Tenino (4-6) used an 8-0 spree to take control of the fourth set, turning an 8-6 lead into 16-6. It never saw the margin dip below nine points the rest of the way.
It was a combination of playing in system and taking advantage of Yelm errors.
“We played one of the best sets we’ve played all season,” Carpenter said.
The Beavers used an 8-4 spurt to seize control of the opener, then four unanswered points in the second for Yelm knotted the match at one set apiece.
In the third, it was trending in Tenino’s direction after erasing an early 3-0 hole to tie the set three times. It went up by as much as five and a Kate Burkhardt kill made it 16-12.
The next point was a service error and Yelm used that to gain its footing and roll off eight straight to lead the match 2-1. Riley Smith registered back-to-back aces that forced a Beavers timeout.
“We tend to get down on ourselves instead of rallying around each other,” Carpenter said.
Burkhardt registered a near triple-double with 12 kills, 10 digs and eight assists while senior Presley Vanchieri, back in volleyball after taking a year off, tallied eight kills and a couple blocks.
Macy Griffis finished with 19 assists, defensive specialist Sequoia Zimmer was 13-of-13 from the service line with five digs and Brianna Asay recorded five kills and three aces.
“She had to play a little bit of catch up,” Carpenter said of Vanchieri returning to form. “Once she figured it out, this last week, she’s been a huge asset to us. She sets our biggest blocks.”
Tenino plays another non-league matchup on Thursday, this time versus Three Rivers Christian. Carpenter believes there is another gear her group can find with the second half of the Class 1A Evergreen league approaching.
“If they get out of their own way and play (free), they are a different team,” she said.
