The Coupeville volleyball team heads out on a little road trip tomorrow.
The Wolves set off to Yakima on Thursday for the Class A State Volleyball Tournament after finishing second in the tri-district tournament held last Saturday at Edmonds-Woodway High School.
The squad lost 2-1 to fourth-ranked Life Christian in the title match after winning two contests earlier during the day. In the first round, Coupeville took care of Kings 2-0, while in a nerve-wracking semifinal match they dispatched Bellevue Christian 2-1.
Coupeville ran up against some tough competition in the championship game. Life Christian of Tacoma was the top school in the Chinook League after an undefeated season.
“(Life Christian) is very athletic, it was a tough match, but the girls played their hearts out,” said Coupeville head coach Kim Meche. “Losing is going to help us this weekend. We didn’t play our best and we stayed with the fourth-ranked team in state.”
The Wolves defeated Kings 2-0 in their first match of the day, winning 15-13, 15-8. Coupeville fell behind early, but rallied behind the play of seniors Sarah Mouw and Ashley Bagby, who had nine and eight kills respectively.
“We hadn’t seen Kings before Saturday,” Meche said about the contest. “We fell behind and it took a comeback to get us over the hump and we came out on top. The comeback really got us going.”
Coupeville then had one of its most exciting matches of the season in the semifinal round against Bellevue Christian. The Wolves came out on top after a wild three set victory, 15-17, 21-19, 15-13.
“They played us really, really even. Neither team was willing to give up anything,” said Meche. “We served awful and we had game point four or five times, we just couldn’t put them away. Our passing saved us. We kept rallying because we were not going to lose it. We had set a goal to play in the championship game going in. It was a fun match to play.”
Leading the way for the Wolves against BCHS were sophomore setter Brook Croghan (29 assists), Sarah Mouw (15 kills, 25 digs) and junior Amy Mouw (27 digs).
Thanks in part to weary legs, the Wolves luck ran out in the title match against Life Christian. Dead tired after the epic hour and a half struggle with Bellevue Christian. The Wolves fell to the fourth-ranked Eagles in three sets 10-15, 15-13, 5-15.
“We were exhausted after the BCHS match and we just ran out of gas. The girls were angry to lose since it hasn’t happened since September.”
The loss to Life Christian ended the Coupeville’s 14-match winning streak that began early in the season after a Sept. 13 loss at Forks.
The tri-district consisted of the top four teams from the Northwest, Chinook, and Emerald City leagues. Northwest A schools finished second, third, and fourth with Orcas Island and LaConner right behind Coupeville. Rounding out the selections to state were Kings (fifth) and Bellevue Christian (sixth).
Now comes the 1A State tournament Nov. 9-10 at the Yakima Sun Dome. Pool play begins on Friday with the Wolves in Pool C along with Kings, Ilwaco, and defending State champ’s Colfax. After playing each team in its pool, the top two squads from each group move on to Saturday for the knockout round. Meche for one belives that her team can go deep into the tournament.
“If we can play like we know we can than this team can think about more than just playing on Saturday,” she said. “I’m very excited, we need to set goals for state and we need to set them very high. These girls just hate to lose.”
