High school volleyball roundup: Annie Wright comes out on top against Cascade Christian
The high school volleyball postseason is underway. Follow along with our roundup coverage of district championship games here.
ANNIE WRIGHT 3, CASCADE CHIRSTIAN 1
20-25, 25-17, 25-22, 25-19
The Golden Gators stay golden as for the second straight year, the girls volleyball team is crowned champions in the District 3 1A volleyball tournament.
After cruising to a 3-0 win over Bellevue Christian in the district semifinals, Annie Wright was set to take on the Cougars on their home court. Electricity was on the side of Cascade Christian, at least in the first set as they won 20-25.
“Cascade played the best I’ve ever seen them in this game. They took the first set against us and I think that was good because it woke us up,” said coach Jeff Grosshans. After that first set, I told the team that it is a marathon and not a sprint. Good for them, they got a set. Now it’s our turn. Cascade Christian was fired up, and they never stopped battling. They have a great team.”
One of the players giving the Golden Gators fits was sophomore Layne Dent. She was able to exploit some of the weak points in Annie Wright’s defense and nearly took them down on her own.
But once Dent was rotated to the back, senior middle hitter Rae Wartell went to work with her team. Like the old baseball adage, the Golden Gators needed to hit the ball where Dent wasn’t. And that’s exactly what they did.
“The girls were trying to figure out how to dig out Dent’s hits and put partial hands on those balls that would go out of bounds,” Grosshans said. “When Dent went into the back row, that’s when we scored points. We wanted to find the holes in their defense. Our girls are warriors, they have put in the time since freshman year and now as seniors, we are seasoned. We’ve been in those situations where we couldn’t win and now we know what to do.”
Annie Wright would take the next three sets 25-17, 25-22, and 25-19 and claim the district crown again. Now the await seeding for the state tournament.