LONGVIEW — There’s an old adage in volleyball lore that goes something like this — swing hard and be happy.
It was R.A. Long who laughed first, last, and most frequently in between the bookends on the way to a three-set win over W.F. West, Tuesday, in their pigtail playoff match to open the 2A District IV Volleyball Tournament. Deploying that approach the Lumberjills locked down wins of 25-17, 25-7 and 25-18 to secure the sweep on Joe Moses Court at The Lumberdome.
The victory sent the Jills to the double elimination portion of the district tournament bracket. The loss for W.F. West brought its season to an end in Longview.
The opening stanza started out in an offsetting fashion as both teams worked cautiously to feel each other out. But after knotting the score up at 13-13 the Bearcats were unable to sustain the momentum in the face of a confident R.A. Long attack.
“The start of the first set our defense was moving and playing the ball and communicating. They were doing all the right things,” W.F. West coach Tiffany Alvarado said before loading up the bus for the final trip of the season. “They got a little in their heads after we got a few hard hits at us and struggled to cover that.”
Jillian Woodruff led the R.A. Long offense with 12 kills and seven assists to go with four digs. She spent much of the night lurking behind six-foot middle blocker Evelyn Ofstun near the 10-foot line in order to leap out at the last minute to unleash a surprise attack on an unsuspecting defense. The “cross” action involves a timed jump by Ofstun that provides cover for the heaviest hitters in red and black, and also leaves the defense guessing which player to mark, and when.
“We’ve been working on that for a while,” Ofstun noted. “We’re trying to make the person on the other team jump with me thinking I’m running a one, and (Jillian) she comes in from behind me and runs a two. So it’s just a higher set.”
R.A. Long coach Whitney Nailon confirmed the tactical description provided by Ofstun.
“We have been working on being savvier,” Nailon said. “Some teams will call it a piggyback.”
Ella Eib added seven kills and a block for the Jills. Ryane Hays posted six kills and Gracy Maichen added four kills to go with nine digs.
“Ella didn’t have any hitting errors. She hit in the six hundreds again,” Nailon added. “Macy did a good job of bouncing back.”
A relatively tight opening set gave way to a runaway score in the second frame as the Lumberjills began to swing with more and more confidence. The hosts ran out to a 9-1 lead and never looked back.
Lyla Khlee dished 22 assists for R.A. Long,
“R.A. Long moved us all around,” Alvarado said. “They did a good job placing the ball and not letting us adjust, so props to them. They did a really good job with that.”
And while other players were typically the targets for the sets sent out by Khlee and Woodruff, it was Ofstun herself who provided the highlight reel smashes on the night.
She opened the second set with a lighting spike from the approximately the rafters of the Lumberdome only to see the shot dug up miraculously by the Bearcats, but when the ball came back over the net into her sector she seized the moment and posted a wicked stuff block to nullify an otherwise brave effort by the visitors.
Later in the set she sent a W.F. West player to the bench after banging a kill shot off the floor that ricocheted into the unfortunate Bearcats’ face.
She finished the game with seven blocks and four kills.
So which play does R.A. Long’s net enforcer prefer? Ofstun will take the block over the kill every time. And if the former begets the latter, all the better.
“I like when it bounces off their heads,” she noted with a sheepish grin.
And what does a larger than life presence up front do for the Lumberjills’ attack? Plenty.
“Being able to execute middle elevates our hitters and it opens up more,” Nailon said. “It gets the other team dialed in on middle so they’re late blocking the pins and it just gives us more opportunities to get kills.”
On the defensive side, Eve Huhta tallied a team-high 12 digs to go with one ace.
Still, Ofstun came away most impressed with the performance of Woodruff in the do-or-die playoff game.
“Jillian just goes everywhere,” Ofstun said. “(Coach) will put her in back row and she’ll do that amazing, and then (coach will) go and make her an outside (hitter) and she’ll do that amazing. We’re just always moving her around.”
Woodruff was recently tabbed as a first-team All-League selection out of the 2A Greater St. Helens League. Eibe was named to the second team, while Huhta and Graichen received honorable mentions.
R.A. Long (11-9) will play Ridgefield at 4 p.m. on Thursday at Woodland for a spot in the District semifinals on Saturday.
Bearcats banking on better tomorrows
A season of ups and down came to an end in a familiar fashion for W.F. West. It wasn’t a lack of desire that held the Bearcats back. It was an inability to capitalize when opportunities did present themselves.
“We just struggled with our hitting tonight and forcing them to be out of system,” Alvarado said. “We gave them a lot of easy stuff.”
That doesn’t mean W.F. West doesn’t have the personnel to get the job done. It’s just a matter of getting everything, and everyone, into rhythm all at once. Take junior middle blocker/outside hitter Arianna Wheaton for example. Her stats weren’t enough to set the world on fire at The Lumberdome, but her ability to adjust on the fly was evident.
“Arianna Wheaton is a stellar hitter, it just wasn’t her night tonight. She just struggled to put the ball in play and then got down on herself,” Alvarado said. “I was happy to see, though, it didn’t affect her passing. She did a really nice job in the backcourt.”
The Bearcats will graduate four seniors in the offseason — Addison Froschauer, Grace Simpson, Marley McGreal, and Addison Adams. And that will create openings in the rotation and in the locker room that will need to be filled.
“We do have quite a few juniors who will be coming back so we are excited about what that looks like for next year,” Alvarado noted.
W.F. West will put their jerseys away with an overall record of 5-13 on the season.
