Bulldogs claim 2B title after 5-game battle

Colfax Bulldogs took the state 2B volleyball championship Friday at the SunDome in Yakima by sweeping their first three foes and out-lasing a tough Mossyrock team in a five-game battle which went down to the final points in a fifth game.

“Mossyrock was a very good team, they made it tough on us,” Colfax Coach Sue Doering commented.

The five game battle was also Doering’s last match as coach on the Colfax sidelines.

Doering said she thought the key play for the title win came when Abbie Miller tip-toed along the end line to dig a Mossyrock hit. She got the ball up and it went over the net.

Mossyrock, believing Miller had gone out-of-bounds, caught the ball, but the refs ruled that it was in play.

The call seemed to throw the Vikings off the pace and Colfax moved on to the 15-11 win in the last game

Piper Cai and Greta Geier hit ace shots, and the Bulldogs moved Carmen Gfeller to the outside to hit. They realized as the match went along that Gfeller was having the best success hitting from the outside.

The Vikings by then were out of timeouts and couldn’t realign.

Match point and tournament point came in a block put up by Gfeller and Kierstyn York.

“That was also the career point for five of us,” Doering commented.

Colfax started the title match by booking two narrow game wins, 25-20 and 25-19. They needed one more to finish, but Mossyrock fought back with a 25-27 win in the third game.

They kept the momentum going with a 17-25 win in the fourth game to tie at 2-2 and roll into the final short game to decide the title.

Doering credited Mossyrook with their back court tenacity in getting the Colfax hits off the SunDone deck and sending them back to Colfax.

Gfeller at times sent seven hits over the net before Colfax could nail a point.

“She was getting a little tired,” Doering commented. Gfeller hit 31 kills in the title game, and Kylie Kackman had 48 assists in the long match and hit 28-28 serving.

Cai hit 17-19 serving and had 27 digs. Miller had 25 digs.

Overall, Doering said the Bulldogs advanced a long way since the middle of the season.

“They sharpened up, and maybe I got a little bit tougher,” she admitted.

Colfax made the title run without giving up a lot of points to the opposition.

They started with a four-game win over a Toutle Lake team which they had already met at the Okanogan tournament.

Colfax had a lot of size advantage over the Ducks.

In the quarter-final they swept Napavine.

“They had a couple of hitters on that team, we were able to contain them.”

In the semi round they played Life Christian of Tacoma and booked another sweep.

The Eagles were keyed by Madison Boles who was able to hit at sharp angles.

Miller had 17 digs in that game and was able to stifle the Eagles’ hitting game.

The win over the Eagles was another sweep, 25-17 25-10 and 25-10. That sent the Bulldogs into the tile match against Mossyrock which went for a five set.

“It was a good tournament, and we had a lot of fun,” Doering said. “Of course, things got a little close at times, but we got through it.”

Overall stats: Abbie Miller 72 digs, 30-34 serving with 4 aces; Kylie Kackman 140 assists, 2 kills, 6 block. 43 digs, 85-86 serving with 9 aces; Carmen Gfeller 100 kills, 12 blocks, 35 digs, 32-39 with 6 aces; Piper Cai 18 kills, 7 blocks, 53 digs, 59-61 with 10 aces; Greta Geier 20 kills, 2 blocks, 13 dig, 30-37 serving with 5 aces; Kierstyn York 15 kills, 4 blocks 7 digs; Skylre Sakamoto-Howell 6 digs 8-10 serving, 5 assists; Kaitlin Cornish 2 digs 1-2 serving, 1 kill.