ADNA — The clock hasn’t struck midnight on the Napavine High School volleyball team quite yet.
Their Cinderella run through the Class 2B District 4 tournament reached a fever pitch on Wednesday night.
From the opening point to the final one, the offense was in sync and even some stretches of lapses didn’t thwart the 11th-seeded Tigers en route to a dominant 25-12, 25-18, 25-22 triumph over sixth-seeded Mossyrock in Adna.
“This is something they have been striving for all year,” Napavine head coach Monica Dailey said. “Our record wasn’t fun, but I knew that it didn’t define us either.”
When the postseason started, the Tigers had just three wins and didn’t beat a C2BL team in either the non-league portion or the six league meetings. They registered just three victories in the regular season.
They’ve won three matches in the span of four days and are one victory away from a trip to the state tournament in Yakima. Standing in their way is fourth-seeded Toutle Lake on Saturday morning in Raymond.
“It is really exciting; I know how hard we’ve worked in practice and we push ourselves to the max,” senior libero Lilly Grabianowski said. “We had a lot of faith in each other. We’re hoping to have the same mentality and the same drive.”
It’s been back to regularly scheduled programming for Napavine. For years, it was in district title or winner-to-state games on a yearly basis. As the roster became younger, the winning was more of a challenge.
The last two years didn’t end in the playoffs.
“All programs go through growing spurts,” Dailey said. “We had to kind of start over. No matter how much you try to prepare them in practice and JV games, it doesn’t correlate to playing in a varsity match.”
Even with Grabianowski, setter Makayla Brett and defensive specialist Makaylynn Arias as the lone seniors, there’s a renewed energy behind junior starters Ava Ondong and Mya Garrett plus four freshmen that all have been factors in the late-season push.
It’s a group that has been through the wringer and is now seeing the fruits of their labor.
“They want it and mentally, they weren’t ready yet,” Dailey said. “It is all starting to come together.”
Napavine (6-14) jumped out to an 11-5 cushion in set one thanks to five unanswered points. Yet it was Grabianowski’s back row kill a few points later that gave it all the momentum needed to pull away.
The Tigers closed the opener with 10 of the final 12 points, including eight in a row.
“It was a great spark,” Grabianowski said. “Everybody’s eyes lit up.”
Ondong had two kills and Emily Thuston served up an ace in a 7-0 spree in the second set to lead by 11. Mossyrock cut it to five, but never got closer and Ondong slammed down a kill to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead in the match.
Add in the defensive prowess with Grabianowski, Ondong and Brett all with at least seven digs and it equaled what Dailey believes was one of the best matches of the season, considering the magnitude.
Garrett led with 12 kills and added three blocks plus four aces while Ondong chipped in eight kills and Scarlett Dunivin recorded five. Brett dished out 22 assists and joined three others with multiple aces.
“The girls did a great job of staying focused,” Dailey said.
For Mossyrock (7-10), it was the other side of the coin.
Its hitters were either wide, long, grazed the antenna or committed net violations. The total hitting errors for the night crept just over 15.
“They didn’t show up,” Vikings first-year head coach Hannah Bredeson said. “Napavine fought to get into districts and they aren’t going to give it to you. It was just a matter of who was going to show up when push comes to shove.”
The third set was the most competitive. Mossyrock turned a 6-3 deficit into a 10-7 lead behind a handful of Napavine errors and front row points from Coco Baldwin and Audrey Ollikainen. The Vikings tied the set at 14 and trailed 20-19 late.
They staved off three straight match points before the Tigers called a timeout. Ondong delivered the knockout blow one rally later.
“We had only a few minor mistakes and we got to our defensive spots tonight and that made a difference,” Grabianowski said.
“It felt like we were getting there,” Bredeson added. “They let the idea of their season ending define the rest of the (night).”
Baldwin and Ollikainen each had at least five kills and Anna Zavodsky recorded three aces. It marked the final game for four Viking seniors: Annika Ball, Ashley Schwartz, Zavodsky and Calliope Schultz.
Bredeson teared up afterwards talking about those four. Her roster next season will likely be paced by Maci Rashoff, Baldwin, Ollikainen and Brooke Schwartz in the back row.
“I reminded them of their growth,” Bredeson said. “Just wanted to let them know how proud I was of them and for my underclassmen, I wanted them to remember what this feeling is like and fuel them for seasons to come.”
Napavine faced Toutle Lake twice and lost both meetings, but took a set the second time around. At this rate, no one within the Tigers locker room is doubting what their potential is and the confidence is overflowing.
Cinderella’s glass slipper is three sets away from finding a perfect match.
“What we’ve done in the past doesn’t matter,” Dailey said. “Win or lose, I’m going to be proud. We’re on the cusp.”
