HS Volleyball: Puyallup blanks Olympia in straight sets

9/6/2022

Puyallup 3, Olympia 0 (25-22, 25-16, 25-12)

(Puyallup, WA) The Olympia Bears took the floor for the 1st time in 42 years with someone other than Laurie Creighton as the Volleyball head coach. Creighton retired after last season as the 2nd winningest volleyball coach in Washington State. Christie Oldright a former player and coach for Creighton stepped into those massive shoes and took over the reins of the Bears. Prior to the game she told us this was nerve-wracking and just wants to continue the standards and traditions of Olympia Volleyball.

Oldright’s counterpart Allie Schumacher knows what she’s going through as Schumacher took over for a legend at Puyallup just 2 years ago when she stepped in when Tony Batinovoch retired after 28 years and more than 600 wins. Combined Batinovich and Creighton racked up more than 1,500 wins over a total of 70 seasons. Talk about stepping into legacy positions? Taking over programs like these are far more difficult than taking over programs that have struggled and much respect to both of these ladies willing to step in and take on these challenges.

Now to the match and in set 1 it looked like this was going to be a back and forth and at least 4 if not the full 5 sets. Neither team would run off more than 2 points at a time until the Bears’ Kate Herrick reeled off 3 to give Olympia an 11-9 lead. Puyallup then answered with their biggest run of 5 points behind the serving of Reese Sheppard and fueled by 2 massive kill shots by Dani Brown and the Vikings pulled away to a 14-11 lead.

It would ping-pong back and forth until the Vikings Ivy Vindivich took over trailing 21-20 and fired off 3 straight points to push it to a 23-21 lead before Olympia won the point and it was 23-22. The Bears had an unforced error and Sophia Sheppard served and won set point as Puyallup took set 1 25-22.

From then on you could see that maybe Puyallup already playing a full match last Saturday while the Bears competed in a jamboree saw the Vikings get stronger. One of the changes came when Leilah Lemalu was substituted in for Becca Wilbur by coach Schumacher. Schumacher says Wilbur is coming off an ACL injury from last year and they just want to bring her back slowly at her pace and when she feels a little soreness they want to be safe especially early on in the season.

Lemalu came on and made a couple of missed shots but then settled in and made several important shots and served exceptionally well. She was such a factor we named here our MVP of the game for her effort off the bench.

In that key 2nd set the Bears had kept pace after falling behind 4-0 behind the serving of Puyallup’s Rylie Hangca. The Bears Susannah Barnett quickly got 2 of those points back. Hannah Byers and Bella Grant played well at the line for Olympia and came up with some big blocks and kill shots to keep the Bears and they trailed only 18-16 when Hangca came back to the service line.

Rylie proceeded to fire off 7 straight points to run the table and take set 2 blowing open a tight game to a 25-16 comfortable win. Ivy Vindivich came up big during that 7 point run with a huge kill shot and winning the last point with what looked like she was winding up to put it through the floor but then gracefully took a little bit off and dropped it in just inside the back line and Puyallup went up 2-0.

In the 3rd set the Bears looked tired and Puyallup was soaring and they quickly took control with several multiple point services with Reese Sheppard and Lemalu starting the match giving the Vikings a 10-2 run that Olympia could not recover from. Hangca had a chance to again run off the final points and needed 5 but got 4 to push it to 24-12 and the Vikings quickly ended it completing the sweep 3-0 on the 25-12 win.

Puyallup is now 2-0 and will next face Tahoma Wednesday night in another non-league match. Olympia drops to 0-1 and will look for their 1st win Thursday night at Capital.