The Ridgefield Spudders volleyball team beat the Woodland Beavers in three sets on Tuesday, Sept. 24, and followed that performance with a 3-0 win at Hockinson High School on Thursday, Sept. 26.
The match between the Spudders and Woodland High School had competitive moments with long, spirited rallies and the teams trading points. The Spudders won the first set, 25-17, before dominating the second in a lopsided 25-7 victory. The final set was close and highly competitive until Ridgefield strung enough points together to close with another 25-17 win.
On Thursday, Sept. 26, the Spudders beat the Hockinson Hawks 25-4, 25-12 and 25-16.
“I think our goal for us is to be consistent and starting off strong,” Spudders head coach Sabrina Dobbs said Sept. 24. “We just had a tournament on Saturday, so I thought today was really good for us to start off strong as our goal and then follow all the way through.”
In recent years, Lizzy Andrew towered on the front line and appeared on the roster at a height of 6-foot-5-inches. Now that Andrew is a standout freshman for the Stanford University volleyball program, freshman Piper Moog is bringing the height at 6 foot, 5 inches and is gathering valuable experience as a young player.
“It’s the same as kind of starting with when we had Lizzy who plays for Stanford. Now that Piper is starting off young, she still has a lot of growth for her, and so starting her, she’s grown quite a bit from this last year,” Dobbs said. “So starting her young on our team and getting her ready and prepared for the future is what we’re going to be working on with her.”
On the Woodland Beavers side of the net, first-year head coach Kendall Rohrer brings a lot of experience to the rebounding program.
“I played volleyball at Grand Canyon University, and then I coached on the staff at Grand Canyon University, and I’ve been coaching club teams that finished as high as 17th in the country,” Rohrer said.
Rohrer said she hopes to build the players’ confidence this season. The roster of 14 has just four seniors, with a lot of underclassmen gaining varsity experience in the fresh season. Rohrer hopes to add more wins to the score sheets and assist with her players’ mental game.
“I think we definitely have areas to improve in terms of playing as a team and playing a new system that I’ve introduced this year,” Rohrer said. “So, improving on that and then also just continuing to limit our errors, but I think we’re continuing to get better every night. It’ll be great to see how we’re doing in a couple of weeks.”
The Woodland Beavers fought hard in their Thursday, Sept. 26, match against R.A. Long High School of Longview, losing 3-2.
The Beavers continued to gain experience in a tournament on Saturday, Sept. 28, and played against Hockinson High on Tuesday, Oct. 1, but results were unavailable as of press time. Up next, Woodland hosts the Washougal Panthers at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3.
For the Spudders, two early-week home matchups with the Skyview Storm on Monday, Sept. 30, and Hudson’s Bay High School on Tuesday, Oct. 1 gave way to a three-game road stretch starting with R.A. Long High School of Longview at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3.
