YAKIMA — Death and Mossyrock High School’s volleyball team finishing top-four at the state tournament. For the last eight seasons, those two felt like the only guarantees in life.

Until Wednesday.

The strength of the fourth-seeded Vikings became a weakness in the most pivotal game of the season in losing a Class 2B quarterfinal heartbreak to fifth-seeded and unbeaten Coupeville 25-17, 23-25, 25-15, 25-17 inside the Yakima Valley SunDome.

“I thought we had a really good route to do that (place top-four), just came up a little short today,” Vikings head coach Alex Nelson said. “There’s still trophies to be won.”

It marks the first time since the 2016 tournament that Mossyrock (13-7) will not be in the semifinals in either 1B or 2B and therefore not bring home a top-four trophy. Still, the possibility of hardware coming back to Lewis County is alive.

The Vikings will face Liberty (Spangle) in an elimination game bright and early on Thursday morning. Whoever is the winner of that game will play for fifth and sixth place.

“The message at the end was there’s a lot of volleyball left and if you work to get to this point, you gotta keep fighting,” Nelson said.

Much of this season has been fueled by Mossy’s serving ability. In plenty of matches, the placement and accuracy paved the way for a district runner-up finish just last week.

In both contests on Wednesday, it came apart.

It had 11 service errors in the opening round four-set victory over Colfax and seven versus Coupeville. Add in the plethora of passing missteps and the Vikings were behind the eight-ball several times.

Yet despite that, they were in the quarterfinal match to the very end.

Mossy trimmed the deficit to 20-16 in the fourth to force a Coupeville timeout. The Wolves responded with back-to-back points to up the lead back to six and Nelson called time.

“They’ve done that a lot this season and I’ve asked them to do that more than once. They’ve had a lot of resolve this whole season,” Nelson said.

After getting punched in the mouth in the opener, Mossy responded emphatically in the second, at point building a 19-12 lead. Coupeville whittled the deficit and tied the set at 20, but the Vikings executed down the stretch to square the match 1-1.

The Wolves cruised in the third to take the lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

“Their secondary and third hitters put away the ball when we took away some of their strong hitters,” Nelson said. “It was a complete team effort.”

Saydi Mendoza paced the front row with eight kills while Taylor Schwartz registered 24 digs and Renzy Marshall added 18. Erin Cournyer continued her stellar season as the setter with 46 dimes.

In the opening round, Mossy had to withstand a furious push from 13th-seeded Colfax to triumph 27-25, 25-20, 18-25, 25-20. The opening set featured plenty of nip-and-tuck action until the Vikings made plays at the end.

One of the most difficult assignments they had was slowing down Bulldogs southpaw middle Ava Swan. The senior made life difficult for Mossy’s stacked block.

“They played a very untraditional approach,” Nelson said. “She was hitting out of the middle and she was going left or right. She swung hard. I felt like we did a good job making it tough. We executed enough to get the win.”

It did enough in the opening two sets to be on the verge of a sweep, then Colfax answered in the third.

Three players – Marshall, Cournyer and Adyson Barrows – all recorded nine kills versus the Bulldogs. Schwartz, Barrows and Delenay Marshall each went over 20 digs and Mendoza notched four blocks.

“Seeding is one thing, but if you play mediocre, you’re going to lose,” Nelson stated. “It helps to have some strong senior leadership and that’s who I’m going to rely on. When it does, we can have the outcome we want. That’s who needs to lead us if we’re going to get there.”