Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home’s volleyball team finished its season Saturday with fifth-place at the state tournament after beating Junction City 3-1 Friday to reach the semifinals.
The Huskies finished the season 21-4, with a perfect league record.
In the state quarterfinals Friday at Forest Grove High School, Sweet Home beat former Sky-Em rival Junction City 25-15 and 25-21 before losing a game 25-23 and winning the fourth 25-21.
The Huskies moved on to face another former Sky-Em rival, Cottage Grove, in the semifinals, losing in three games, 25-23, 25-17 and 25-23, which sent the Huskies to the consolation bracket to slug it out for the fifth time this season with Sisters, also a Sky-Em team last year and an Oregon West Conference rival this year.
Sweet Home beat Sisters 25-22 to open the match. The Outlaws won the second game 25-20, but the Huskies came back and took the third 25-23. Sisters returned the favor, winning Game 4 25-23 and then defeated Sweet Home 15-6 in the fifth game.
Sisters finished in third place, Valley Catholic beat Cottage Grove 23-25, 25-21, 24-26, 25-22 and 15-11 for the state 4A championship.
In the consolation bracket, Hidden Valley beat Tillamook 25-14, 25-18, 19-25 and 25-12 to place fourth. Tillamook placed sixth.
Traveling to the state tournament were seniors Marissa Kurtz, Sunhee Bitter, Samantha Coats and Aliya Boss; junior Allison Miner; sophomores Graci Zanona, Bailee Hartsook, Savannah Hutchins, Shelbey Nichol and Teja Abbott; and freshman Jamie Seward.
“From the beginning of the season, (it’s) definitely a huge accomplishment,” said team Captain Sunhee Bitter.
“It was a great experience for us to go,” said Coach Mary Hutchins, noting that state is a “completely different environment” compared to the tournaments her team plays in during the regular season. “I realized how much you learn by being there. It was good for the girls to go this year and get the experience. It was good for them to feel their nerves and feel that excitement.”
The decibel level in the gym was extremely high, she said, and it made it more difficult for the team to communicate on the floor. Junction City had a boistrous cheering section and Cottage Grove’s rooter bus pulled in Friday afternoon, loaded with students.
In addition to the unfamiliar setting, the team also was dealing with some illness going into the tournament, she said.
In regular tournaments, teams can relax during pool play, Hutchins said. At state, there’s “never a moment you can just relax in a game, and you don’t get four days to prepare for each team. You’ve got three hours. You don’t have time to breathe.”
In a state-level match, “no lead is big enough,” she said.
The Huskies held leads in every match, but they were often quickly erased, though Sweet Home erased some large leads too.
The Huskies had probably more unforced errors during the state tournament than any other time during the season, Hutchins said, adding that the cause was probably nerves.
At state, teams “have to play clean and give them nothing,” Hutchins said.
“In all honesty, some of them were disappointed in the final result,” Hutchins said, but that’s because the team’s goals kept changing all season.
Their goal is always to go to state, Hutchins said. At the beginning of the season, the Huskies were aiming to finish first or second in league and to automatically qualify for the round of 16.
The way things were going, the goal soon changed to winning league, Hutchins said. That happened, and “now our goal was turned into placing at state.”
By the time of the tournament, even that wasn’t enough for the Huskies.
Hutchins enjoys seeing the girls’ competitive edge and increasingly difficult goals, she said.
“They want more.”
That said, Hutchins put it into perspective for her team: When the Huskies beat Sisters 2-1 – 19-25, 25-22 and 18-16 – in their first tournament of the season, it was something Sweet Home hadn’t done in at least 14 years.
“The girls were jumping up and down,” Hutchins said. They were excited about that win.
Sweet Home won its next two matches against Sisters in regular season and lost in another three-game tournament match before seeing the Outlaws again Saturday at state.
Sisters was the state champion last year, with four starters returning this year, she said, and early polls this season didn’t even have Sweet Home on the map.
To be so close to third place, just two points in Game 4 and surprising everybody, Hutchins wondered who could have predicted the Huskies would “be disappointed in going five games with them.
“Our mindset has changed.”
Going into their last game, “we knew it was going to be a battle,” Hutchins said. “And it was. We took their league championship, and they took our spot (third place).”
As she discussed with others at the tournament, any given night could have gone either way with Sisters, Hutchins said. “We are that evenly matched. We really are. Unfortunately, it was not us that night. We were right there, two points from third. I want them to still take away their pride. I am proud of the girls as we came out strong against them.”
The fourth game was tied 23-23 before Sisters won it, Hutchins said, and the Huskies were never really able to get anything going in the final game.
It’s hard to continually beat a good team, she said, but “it really lit the fire in them for next year.”
Hutchins noted that Cottage Grove was in a similar position, finishing sixth, last year.
Against Cottage Grove, “we had some really long vollies, and we could just not finish them,” Hutchins said, but the girls finished two of the games close, losing 25-23.
“Cottage Grove has a ton of height,” Hutchins said. The Lions have two 6-footers and two who stand 6-2, and the Huskies struggled a bit with blocking.
“We fought and had good rallies,” Hutchins said, but the team “made a lot of unforced errors that were not likeus.”
She didn’t think her team played its best volleyball against Cottage Grove.
The Huskies had leads against both Cottage Grove and Sisters, Bitter said. Against Cottage Grove, “we just kind of beat ourselves.”
She said two girls gave the Huskies a lot of trouble, but “our libero (Graci Zanona) dug them well,” Bitter said. “We were more confident in the Sisters game,” hitting and blocking better at the net.
The Huskies prepared specifically for Junction City last week, Hutchins said. “They actually are a tough team.”
Junction City lost a tournament match 26-24 and 26-24 to Sweet Home earlier in the season.
The Huskies went into that game with some nerves, Hutchins said, and they were battling illness.
After losing Game 3, “we talked about our goals. It was to place. If we win it, we were guaranteed to place at state.”
“We started hitting a lot better” in the fourth game, Bitter said, and at some point, both teams knew the Huskies were going to win it, giving momentum to the Huskies.
“Definitely a huge accomplishment knowing we had to win the first one to get on to the next,” Bitter said. The win primed them for the next match against Cottage Grove and calming their nerves.
Bitter and Hutchins said one of the most important things about the tournament is the Sweet Home community’s support.
“It was nice to have the support we did,” Bitter wsaid.
A crowd gathered around a live stream in the commons at Sweet Home High School, and a “very loud” large group attended the tournament, particularly on Saturday.
“The girls and myself were very blessed by the support of the community,” Hutchins said. “We were so happy with the people that showed up for our playoff game,” watching on live stream, the high school students, the employees of the district, “everyone that came out and just surrounded the girls with love and support. It really meant a lot to the girls and coaches all season long. I feel like in their minds, they didn’t want to let the town down. They didn’t want to let their school down.”