Prep roundup: Kasey Woodruff, Curtis still undefeated, take down defending 4A SPSL champion Puyallup
VOLLEYBALL
Top performer: Peyton Foster, Graham-Kapowsin
18 kills, 19 digs, and 3 blocks in 3-0 win over Rogers
Curtis 3, Puyallup 1: By defeating defending league champion, the blue Vikings of Curtis now find themselves as the sole leader at the top of the 4A SPSL.
Kasey Woodruff had 32 digs and Kayla Skipworth had 14 kills in Curtis’ win over the purple Vikings of Puyallup.
Not that they’re heads are too big.
“The top four maybe even top five teams in the SPSL are gonna battle every week. Every week it could switch,” Curtis coach Michael Miller said, two years after his team won the league title, then the state title. “We’ve been playing well, Puyallup is playing well, you got Bellarmine that’s still in the mix.”
Curtis (8-0, 3-0 4A SPSL) dropped a set in a match for the third time this year, with the others coming in a 3-1 win over Tahoma and 3-2 win over Bellarmine.
“There’s a lot of really good schools. Any given week any school could upset another school,” Miller said. “Tonight there was a lot of crazy defense that extended the rally, extended the play.”
Curtis won the first set 25-18 and the second set narrowly 26-24. Puyallup came back in the third winning 25-18 but it was too little too late as Curtis sealed the win-win 25-19 in the fourth set.
“I think we play good defense and run a fast transitional offense,” Miller said. “I think it could come down to a play here or a play there going your way and that’s what it did especially with close scores like that.”
Graham-Kapowsin 3, Rogers 0: Behind stellar play by Peyton Foster, the Eagles shut out the Rams in a decisive win that saw Rogers fail to win a single set.
“Peyton, she was on fire,” Graham-Kapowsin Loni Parks said. “She’s a stud.”
Foster dominated the match getting 18 kills, 19 digs, and 3 blocks for Graham-Kapowsin (5-3; 2-0) which is now sitting with Curtis as the only unbeaten teams in 4A SPSL play.
“A lot of it is our defense,” Parks said. “Peyton had 3 blocks, Annika had 3 blocks.”
That defense helped limit the Rams to only 11 in the first set and keep them at bay throughout the rest of the match-winning 25-11, 25-18, 25-22.
“We had a lot of momentum and just played well together as team,” Parks said.
Emerald Ridge 3, Olympia 0: It was all Jaguars all game as they swept the bears in three straight sets winning 25-17, 25-23, 25-23.
The standout players for the Jaguars was Tayler Templeman who had 9 kills with 10 digs, Ella Litterell with 8 kills with 9 digs, and Jadyn Mullen who got a whopping 29 assists.
Sumner 3, South Kitsap 0: The Spartans slew the Wolves in a strong win going 25-16, 25-22, and 25-13.
Jayde Grams had 17 digs for Sumner and Sadie Gusler had 25 assists.
BOYS SOCCER
Top performer: Eric Overgaard, Life Christian
2 goals in 6-1 win over Mount Rainer Lutheran
Life Christian 6, Mount Rainier Lutheran 1: Scoring nearly every chance they had, the Eagles soared over the Hawks behind strong play by Eric Overgaard.
Overgaard scored the opening goal of the game that set the Eagles on the right track.
“We’re starting to pass together and work together as a unit,” Life Christian coach Keith Beasinger said. “I felt like we played a good game for us today. We got all the subs in at the 50th minute so that was good too.”
Beasinger was impressed by contributions from multiple players.
“Up until this game I thought we were playing kinda selfish,” Beasinger said. “I had a talk with my guys and said I don’t care who gets the stats. We gotta get that mindset out of our head and they did that today.”
That change of mindset has instilled a new confidence in the potential Beasinger has for the team moving forward.
“Our goal is to make it to the final four,” said Beasinger, whose team lost to Tacoma Baptist in the first round of state a year ago. “If we play together and play hard we got a team that could win it all.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2017 at 9:16 AM with the headline "Prep roundup: Kasey Woodruff, Curtis still undefeated, take down defending 4A SPSL champion Puyallup."