All-State volleyball series nears

Four area volleyball standouts and their coach hit the road early this morning, taking a dawn flight to Sea-Tac Airport to begin a barnstorming East-West All-State series.

The three-day set of volleyball matches featuring the best players from Class B through 4A begins in Fife, near Tacoma, and concludes Saturday night at Mead in Spokane.

The four Greater Spokane League standouts and one from the Great Northern League will play on the 4A/2A East team. A host of Class 1A/B athletes will make up the small-school East team.

“We need to do a quick getting-to-know-you kind of thing with the girls,” said Mead’s Judy Kight, who will co-coach the 4A/2A East team with Jennifer Kerr-Hughes of Omak. “All are accomplished girls. We need to figure out where they like to play and make sure we get them showcased.”

She’ll coach Panthers’ setter Lacey Anderson and middle Rachel Schurman for the last time, plus University middle Daidre Mendenhall and outside hitter Mandy Daniels, and Colville outside hitter Nikki Bardwell.

The four GSL athletes were teammates on the Players club team that recently competed in the Junior Olympics Nationals in Salt Lake City.

“It’s really exciting, kind of a last blowout (for us),” said Anderson.

The state-champion Panthers and league-champion Titans had an established rivalry – “We were not too fond of the U-Hi girls going in,” said Anderson – before joining forces to win the Pacific Northwest national qualifier and becoming friends.

Anderson, Mendenhall and Bardwell will play together at North Idaho College. State 4A MVP Schurman is ticketed for Central Washington University and Daniels is going to Eastern Washington.

“For me personally,” said Anderson of the All-State matches, “I’m going to be meeting some of the girls I’ll be playing with next year. It will probably be fun, but still, there’ll be competition brewing. It’ll be kind of hard not to.”

Nine 1A/B players, outside Jill Solbrack and setter Amy Bruya from Colfax; middle Monica Boone, outside Brenda Hershaw and setter Holli Hollbrook from Garfield-Palouse; middles Stacey Finch from Wilbur-Creston and Mallory Puckett from Tekoa-Oakesdale; and outsides Kimberly Bluff of Cusick and Ritzville’s Destry Killian are members of the East team.

Gar-Pal’s Ron Dinsmoor and Greg Knott of Liberty Bell are co-coaches.

“I get a chance to coach Lacey and Rachel again, that’s the real motivation for me,” said Kight. “And you get to meet others and pick up new ideas. It will be fun.”