The Napavine volleyball team bounced back from its first loss of the season with a four-set victory at Winlock, defeating the Cardinals in four sets, 25-7, 22-25, 25-13, 25-12.
After the Tigers (7-1, 1-0 C2BL) cruised to a win in the first set, the Cardinals (5-2, 0-1 C2BL) picked up their intensity and capitalized on six missed Napavine serves in the second set to equalize.
From there, however, the Tigers locked in on offense and caught fire, and while it didn’t come as easy as it did in the first set, they were able to roll to a victory.
“The girls just dialed back in,” Napavine coach Monica Dailey said. “We were running some good, fast paced offense. And when the girls play fast, they have a tendency to play better, make less mistakes, and have more fun.”
Emily Kand and Kennedy Purvis were both perfect from the service line, and Purvis even tallied nine aces from there.
Kang also had 14 digs, second on the team behind Grace Gall, who had 19 in addition to five aces and four kills. Jessie McCoy also had five aces while also tacking on six kills.
Dakota Hamilton was stellar hitting and passing, tallying 26 assists and 14 kills. Keira O’Neill had a team-high 17 kills.
While the Cardinals weren’t lacking in energy in the final two sets, Winlock coach Terri Dalsted said that against really good teams, you have to be on your A-game.
“Our biggest fault that we’re going through right now is that when we’re playing really good teams we can’t have unforced errors,” Dalstead said. “We had the unforced errors and they didn’t.”
Kindyl Kelly and Lacey Allen led the offense with seven kills each, and Charlee Connelly led the defensive effort with 14 digs. Madison Rohman ignited a couple of scoring runs from the service line, going 13 for 15 and notching four aces.
Both teams return to the court on Tuesday. Napavine will host Wahkiakum while Winlock will host Morton-White Pass.
