Othello looks for mojo as volleyball continues
Bob Barrett Photo - Angelica Hernandez digs the ball during Othello's semi-final match against Selah at Taggares Gym Saturday night.
OTHELLO — Would someone please return the mojo to the Othello Huskie volleyball squad?
Somehow and somewhere the Huskies have lost the momentum built up during their seven-game winning streak.
Last Tuesday, Othello lost at Ellensburg and, on Saturday, the Huskies dropped their semi-final match at Taggares Gym to the Selah Vikings.
Othello faces an uphill battle to earn a berth at the state tournament.
The Huskies will host the East Valley Red Devils in a seeding match on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The winner of that match will host the second place Great Northern team on Saturday, Nov 5, while the loser will have to travel to face the Great Northern top seed.
Play in volleyball starts with the serve, and according to Huskie coach Steve Parris, the Huskies’ recent troubles begin at the service line.
“At the start of the year, our serves were the first part of our offense and right now we are just getting them over,” he said. “We weren’t serving aggressive tonight. We made it easy for them to stay in their offense. There was nothing tough coming at them.”
Tied at 7-7 at Ellensburg on Tuesday, the Huskies went on a 6-1 run in the opening set. The Bulldogs came back to tie the score with a run of their own, but the Huskies regained the advantage with points from Heidi Martinez and Allison Garza and two kills by Tanaya Andersen.
Ellensburg cut the lead to 22-21 but a pair of Bulldog errors allowed Othello to earn the opening set win, 25-21.
Ellensburg went on to win the next three sets, 25-13, 25-20 and 25-12. Although the Bulldogs finished as the runner-up in the last state tournament, the victory over Othello allowed Ellensburg to earn its first league championship in 18 years.
The second place Huskies returned home to host the semi-final district match. The third-place Selah Vikings squared off with the sixth-place Ephrata Tigers with the winner advancing to face Othello.
Selah won the fifth set 15-9 to advance against Othello in the semi-final round.
Then the Vikings defeated the Huskies 25-19, 25-16 and 25-22. The Huskies battled back in the third set to close the gap to 24-22 but Othello was unable to finish the comeback.
“We started to play a little bit better, and we had a nice run by Cayleen on the service line,” Parris said. “We have to start serving aggressively again. It has been that way the last couple of matches.”
The semi-final loss to Selah forces Othello to earn a state berth via the cross-over playoffs with the Great Northern League.
Othello and East Valley of Yakima will square off on Wednesday at Taggares Gym. The winner will earn a home match against the second place GN squad, currently Pullman (8-4).
The loser of Wednesday’s match will have to travel to Cheney (11-1) to face the top GN seed.
The winners of the cross-over matches will earn a berth to state and the losers will go home.