Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home High School varsity volleyball team is headed to the final eight Friday and Saturday in Forest Grove after decisively eliminating Marshfield, 25-16, 25-13 and 25-18, in the first round of playoffs Saturday afternoon, Nov. 2, at home.
“I feel like we executed our game plan – we were going to attack all around so they coudn’t get any type of defensive patterns with us,” said Coach Mary Hutchins. It opened up the court and “put them on their heels a little bit.”
The Huskies heard they hadn’t seen that intense an offense, Hutchins said, so when the Huskies brought the pressure against the Pirates, it created unforced errors.
Sweet Home opened the match with a 9-3 run and quickly widened their lead to 23-13. Sweet Home closed out the first game.
Marshfield kept it closer in the second game, trailing by just three, 11-8, before the Huskies piled on a 14-5 run to win the second game.
The Pirates trailed close behind Sweet Home by two to four points during the first part of the third game.
Hutchins said she called a timeout to refocus her team, and the Huskies went on a 9-3 run to get to game point, 24-15. Marshfield scored the next three before Sweet Home scored the game-winning point and finished the match.
“We couldn’t come in cocky,” said team Captain Allison Miner. “We just did our game.”
The team played really well, she said, and didn’t make many mistakes, which is important going into the state tournament.
The third-ranked Huskies (19-2) will face sixth-ranked Hidden Valley (18-4) at 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 8, at Forest Grove High School in the second round of playoffs, Hutchins said. Sweet Home split games with Hidden Valley earlier this year in pool play at a tournament in Sisters.
On the same side of the bracket, second-ranked Oregon West co-champ Sisters (23-3) is set to face 10th-ranked Philomath (15-10) at 10 a.m.
in the other bracket eighth-ranked Banks (17-7) faces top-ranked Valley Catholic (24-3) and 12th-ranked North Marion (18-6) will face off with fourth-ranked Junction City (20-4).
“Our side of the bracket is pretty stacked,” Hutchins said. The consensus among the coaches is that it contains four of the five heaviest hitters in the tournament. “It’s going to be a tough road. We want to come out, stay focused and play our game.
“I think the girls are excited. They’re focused, and they have big goals.”
“It is the final eight,” Miner said. Everyone is going to be competitive. “We feel really good. We’re going to go in confidently not cocky. We have the skills. We just need to play together and not let up. We just need to come out, do our thing and not let up.”