Colfax netters top Reardan to highlight champs week

Colfax volleyball players posted a three-game win over Reardan, the defending state champions, Saturday to highlight a week-long run against the championship teams. The Bulldogs finished the run 2-1 with Colville, the A division champions, dropping Colfax in the second go-round Saturday to end the locals’ early season win string at 9-0.

Colfax bounced back to defeat Lakeside Tuesday night in a five-game battle.

Next action for Coach Sue Doering’s team will be tonight when the LRS Broncos arrive here for the second league round.

The week’s action started last Thursday when Coach Brandy Brown brought her Tekoa/Oakesdale team to Colfax. The Nighthawks are the defending 1B champions, and they have a lot of the net power back for another run.

“They are a very good team,” Colfax Coach Sue Doering commented.

The ‘hawks battled Colfax to a 23-23 tie and then took the first game 25-23. That went into the books after Colfax the previous weekend ran eight game wins over four foes as defending champions at the Okanogan tournament.

Colfax took Thursday’s match with three close games, 25-18 25-16 and 25-20.

Taylor Larsen booked 16 kills and 10 blocks against the ‘hawks and Nicole Sheer booked 12 kills. Sidney Huber had six blocks, and Amelie Bruya had 30 assists and 12 digs.

Mattie Jo Johnson hit 11 kills for the ‘hawks, and Casandra Mendoza booked three blocks and one dig. Katie Renstrom put up 21 assists and hit four aces against Colfax.

Reardan Saturday arrived as the defending champion in the 2B division. The Indians shut out Colfax last year with the SunDome title game as the capper.

Saturday morning Colfax dominated the renewal match 25-10 25-16 and 25-14.

Coach Doering said Colfax serving was a big factor in the league win. Rachel Robinson led the Bulldogs servers with 19 for 19 and three aces. Kindra Kneale put up 16-17 with two aces.

Larsen had 10 kills and five blocks, and Kneale had three kills and two blocks. Nicole Sheer also had two kills and two blocks.

Reardan’s Kelsey Moos and Katy Burge, two top players for the Indians last year as juniors again proved up against the Bulldogs.

“Moos and Burgh played a solid game, but their team had a tough time getting the ball up to them,” Coach Doering said after crediting the Colfax servers with hitting the right spots to stymie the Indians’ serve-pass game.

Colville, which graduated five seniors off their A division championship team from last year, stopped the Colfax win string with a three-game win Saturday afternoon. Match score was 25-21 25-16 and 15-10.

“We played them pretty well, but we had a problem with passing serves,” Doering noted.

Larsen had six kills and two blocks against Colville and Amelie Bruya put up 17 assists and booked a 12-12 serving with two aces.

Kneale had five blocks, and Amara Huber had five kills.

Lakeside’s Eagles and the Bulldogs battled through five games with the Bulldogs taking the deciding fifth game 15-11. Deanna Aeschliman served Colfax out to a 5-0 lead in the short game.

Colfax in the first game trailed 12-16 when Bruya served up a 10-point run with five aces to put Colfax on top.

Line score for the Colfax win over the Eagles was 25-20 25-19 16-25 17-25 and 15-11.

Bruya had 25 assists and Larsen had 12 kills and five blocks.