HS Volleyball: Olympia jumps out to early lead and handles Rams at North Thurston

9/9/2024

Olympia 3, North Thurston 0 (25-15, 25-19, 28-26)

(Lacey, WA) Last year the North Thurston Rams ran through the regular season, districts and the 1st 2 rounds of state before tasting defeat. The Rams lost in the State semi-finals to Lake Washington and then dropped the 3rd place match to Lynnwood to finish the season with the 4th place trophy.

Olympia was on a similar path with just 3 losses during their run to State and both the Bears and Rams were #1 seeds, Olympia in the 4A bracket and North Thurston in the 3A tounrament. Olympia also won their 1st 2 rounds but dropped in the semi-finals to North Creek. The Bears did bounce back with a win over Lake Stevens to take home the 3rd place trophy.

Monday night was opening night for North Thurston in their quest to get back to State while Olympia had already broken the ice with a win last week over Capital. That jump in competition paid off for Olympia who were sharp from beginning to end but cleary were more in synch than the Rams early on.

In the 1st set Olympia rolled to a 25-15 win. Ther Bears got great serving from Grace Holstrom who relled off 5 straight points early for a 7-1 lead. Alice Fischer, Zoe Betz and Holstrom a 2nd run at the serve line all scored multiple points to cruise to a 25-15 lead.

North Thurston struggled early to get a run going on offense scoring more than 1 point only once in the opening set with Anna Sheeran scoring 3. North Thurston cut the lead to 9-7 but the Bears then powered away for the comfortable win to go up 1-0.

The Rams started to put it together in the 2nd set but still had problems putting together offense. It wasn’t until they trailed 24-16 that Addy Conner put together more than a 1 point serve with 3. Conner had kept the Rams close with some booming kill shots and saome additional solid net play from Abby Losey but the Bears were too much. The key run was Fischer firing off 3 points exctending their lead from 14-11 to 17-11. Olympia went up 2-0 and forced North Thurston into a must win set.

North thurston began the 3rd strong. Conner fired off 3 points and took a 5-2 lead also helped with a big kill shot from Samantha Humphrey. The Bears answered immediately with a 4 point run from Stella Sheeran. The Bears had great movement and placement all night long and that had kept the Rams off balance.

This time though the Rams settled in and you could see the differfence in their play from set 1 to set 3. North Thurston asserted themselves with a huge 5 point run from Anna Sheeran with both Losey and conner coming up with key shots to score and the Rams led 13-9. N-T pushed it to 19-13 when the Bears decided they weren’t in the mood to play a 4th set and began their comeback with a 4 point serve from Holstrom to cut the lead to 19-18.

The Rams didn’t give in and went up 24-22 and had set point. But the resiliant Bears got the 2 points they needed to force OT with River Sutch at the sxerfvice line and another big shot from Holstrom.

The set was tied at 25-25 and then 26-26 when Alice Fischer came to the serve line. Fischer served it across and it was returned that set up one of Fischer’s incredible passing shots that she had down on this night of simply placing the ball where no one was. This forced match point and Fischer served but the Rams were unable to get a solid shot on the return and soft ball was an easy dunk for Scriven to end the set 28-26 and the match 3-0 and the win for Olympia.

Although they took the loss the Rams had to be pleased with their work in the 3rd set and showed they are going to still be difficult to deal with this season. Olympia lost a lot to graduation but their senior peadership of the their returners shows this is unlikely to be a re-building year. The same can be said for the Rams.

Olympia is now 2-0 and hosts Kelso on Thursday in another non-conference game. The Rams are 0-1 and looks for their 1st win Tuesday at Capital in conference play. Our Thorbeckes MVP of the match went to Alice Fischer of Olympia.

Link to match replay on the NFHS Network (Subscription required)

ESN talks with MVP Alice Fischer