The La Center Wildcats experienced similar success compared with last season in the Yakima Valley Sundome for the 1A state volleyball tournament, reaching the same third/fourth place game again but this year earning fourth place.
To start the tournament on Friday, Nov. 15, the Wildcats notched a three-set win over Zillah and followed up that evening with another three-set win, this time against The Bear Creek School. In the semifinal round on Saturday, Nov. 16, the Wildcats won the first set against Cascade Christian, but lost overall, 3-1. Being knocked into the third/fourth place match was hard on the players, head coach Cymany O’Brien said.
This year, the Wildcats took home the fourth place trophy, a drop from last year’s third place finish, but O’Brien still believes this year’s tournament was great overall. The Wildcats lost to the Cedar Park Christian Eagles in the third/fourth place match on Nov. 16.
“I think the girls were just focused on supporting each other,” she said. “The semifinal loss to Cascade Christian, that was tough, you know, and so coming back after that for the third/fourth game this year was more difficult than it was last year.”
Last year, O’Brien said the Wildcats were just so happy to be there, be in the moment, and showed up with a mentality of having something to prove.
“So our focus was a little bit different, and this year, not that they didn’t have something to prove, but they just had this dream of being in that finals match,” O’Brien said. “And so, recovering from that loss in the morning was just more challenging this year. But in the third/fourth place match they really just started focusing on lifting each other up and supporting each other …”
For the Wildcats, the 1A tournament marked a sense of pride with the La Center community and the program’s efforts to get youth involved in team sports at an early age in the small north Clark County city. The Wildcats went up against private high schools in three of their four games in the state tournament.
“There’s a huge amount of private schools, and it’s a little frustrating because we don’t get to recruit and they do,” O’Brien said. “We have to work really, really hard at building up our athletes and they can recruit their athletes. So to me, they’re much more invested in the program because I’m working all year long at ensuring our athletes are getting trained, and that’s starting at the third-grade level because we run little’s camp and we have our club volleyball program, too.”
O’Brien added that the private schools also work hard at building a program, too. But with La Center only having so many student athletes and not being able to recruit, coaches must work very hard at getting the students interested in the sport at such a young age.
But seeing so many of the Wildcat faithful who traveled to Yakima made O’Brien emotional.
“We’ve been to state before, and the last two seasons to see how many people made that 3.5 hour drive to Yakima and looking and seeing all the blue and white in the stands on our side was like, we have a shirt, ‘Small Town, Big Pride,’ and that was literally all I could think about when I would look was ‘small town, big pride,’ ” she said. “Seeing how many fans we had filling up our section, you know, bleeding into the other team section, it made me really proud, and I’m a La Center grad, so I feel that ‘small town, big pride’ a lot and super connected to the community. The community always shows up and that is so amazing.”
Ridgefield Spudders
The Ridgefield Spudders started off their 2A state tournament with a three-set win to Nathan Hale High School before losing 3-1 to the Columbia River Rapids on Friday, Nov. 15. After the quarterfinal loss, the Spudders found themselves battling in the fifth/sixth place bracket on Nov. 16. In a loser-out matchup against the Tumwater Thunderbirds, the Spudders found a fifth set win after starting out down 2-1. Ridgefield saw their season come to a close in the fifth/sixth place game against the Pullman Greyhounds with a 3-1 loss, earning sixth place.
Prairie Falcons
The Prairie Falcons began their 3A District 3/4 tournament with a 3-1 over Lincoln (Tacoma) High School, followed by another 3-1 win over Timberline High School on Friday, Nov. 15, punching their ticket to state.
The Falcons lost in the fifth set to North Thurston High School on Saturday, Nov. 16, with no follow-up game in the tournament.
Prairie was awarded the third seed in the 3A state tournament and will face the winner of Eastside Catholic versus Kennewick at 11:45 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 22. The Falcons will either play the winner or loser of Timberline versus Mt. Spokane, depending on the results of the Falcons’ first match. They will play at 9 p.m. with a win, while a loss will have them playing at 5:15 p.m.
