Lucky Or Not, Colfax Has Returned
1A/2A volleyball
Call it a curse or just plain bad luck, but for the Colfax Bulldogs volleyball team the second-day draw is just not very kind to them.
For the second straight year the Bulldogs have been bitten by the draw for Day 2 of the 1A State volleyball tournament being held at Nicholson Pavilion on the Central Washington University campus.
Last year it was a semifinal match-up with eventual champion Toutle Lake that ended Colfax’s title run. This time around, the Bulldogs are in the same semifinal bracket as Kalama, the state’s No. 1 team. But before Colfax gets a shot at the Chinooks, they first must contend with South Central Athletic Conference champion Zillah in a quarterfinal match at 8:30 a.m.
It’s quite the daunting task for Sue Doering’s club, which swept through Friday with three impressive wins.
“We have no luck sometimes,” said Doering after the draw was posted.
Her Bulldogs started out the day with a 15-1, 15-6 shellacking of Liberty Bell in a match that took only 40 minutes. Then came a showdown with the only other undefeated team in the tournament, Dayton.
“We new they were the ones to beat out of our pool,” Doering said. “But that was the most pumped up I’ve seen our team before a match. We were charged.”
The emotion of the match showed early on as the calmer Bulldogs took a 5-0 lead. But back came Colfax to run off nine of the game’s final 10 points to win 15-11. The momentum carried over into the second game as Colfax built a 6-1 lead en route to a 15-11, two-game sweep of Dayton.
“We’ve always had kind of a rivalry with them (Dayton), senior Emily Hall said. “They’re a fun team to play and we’ve known them for a long time.”
Said junior Becky VanTine, “I was looking forward to that match a lot.”
With their blue tie-dye socks on for the third time on Friday, the Bulldogs took the floor for their final match of the day, against Cascade Christian, already with the knowledge they had qualified for today’s bracket play. While the Bulldogs’ play was less than inspired, they pulled away to defeat the Cougars 15-8, 15-2.
In that match, Colfax was successful on a remarkable 43 of 44 serves.
2A
Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) went 3-0 to finish first in Pool D during the opening day of action at the SunDome in Yakima.
Newport lost two of three in Pool B and was eliminated.
Lakeside opened with a 15-12, 15-11 victory over Eatonville. The Eagles followed that with a 15-1, 15-9 win over Woodland and a 15-6, 15-10 win over Ephrata.
Lakeside takes on Lynden Christian in quarterfinal action today at 8:30 a.m.
The Grizzlies dropped their opener to Omak 9-15, 5-15 before rallying to beat Tenino 15-4, 16-14. Newport was eliminated by Lynden Christian 8-15, 9-15.