Newport 25, 25, 25
Sweet Home 16, 19, 18
The Huskies volleyball team lost 25-16, 25-19 and 25-18 to Newport in league play Thursday night at home.
“Newport,” Coach Debbie Danielson said. “They’re a very strong team. They have one girl that’s really amazing. We hung with them OK, but they were just a pretty strong team.
“We missed more serves than we should have for a team like this.”
And the Huskies needed to be more offensive facing an opponent like this, she said.
In the second game, the Huskies played ahead of Newport for a while, she said.
Team serving percentage was 80.56, with Alisha Huschka serving 4-4 and Tana Tyler 3-3. Sam Johnson served 11-13 with four aces, and Jess Seiber served 7-8 with three aces.
Johnson and Paige Niemi led hitting with three kills each.
The team’s passing average was 1.44 on a scale of 0-3.
At the 16-team Sisters tournament held Saturday, the Huskies split their pool play games and then lost to Junction City in the first round of bracket play.
The Huskies opened against top-ranked Estacada in pool play, Danielson said, losing 21-7 and 21-10.
The team really wasn’t quite awake, she said, and they were facing five players 5-10 and taller.
The Huskies recovered and topped Seaside 21-13 and 21-17, and then split with ranked Marist, losing 21-13 and then winning 21-19.
“We were amazing on those games,” Danielson said.
The Huskies ended up facing Junction City in the first round of bracket play, losing 25-20 and 25-16.
“We were better than they were, but we just didn’t come out as fired up in that game,” Danielson said, but the Huskies were able to run some plays and build confidence for their hitters, something she hopes will carry through this week.
Seiber was on top of her game during the tournament, Danielson said, and she racked up 23 kills on the day.
The team’s passing average was 1.82 with Sarah Rosa leading at a 2.2. Seiber had an average of 2 with 32 serves received and Cassidy Sullivan had an average of 2 with two serves received.
Niemi led serving on the day, going 19-20 with a 95 percent serving percentage.