Ephrata still undefeated after win over East Valley
EPHRATA — Ephrata High School girls volleyball team took all three sets against East Valley High School of Yakima Tuesday, continuing its undefeated streak and keeping it on track for a league title this year.
Ephrata’s overall record is 9-0 and conference record is 5-0.
Starters for Ephrata Tuesday included senior Piper Johnson, junior Kyndal Hines, senior Lindsay Addink, sophomore Addison Mills, senior Hayden Mills and senior Nayelie Alvarez.
There was a large and loud student section in attendance to support the Tigers.
While the Tigers came out on top, East Valley gave them a run for their money. Ephrata started with the first serve, but did not score the first point. East Valley was not able to get its serve over the net, giving Ephrata its first point of the night.
The first three points of the match were reciprocated before the Tigers jumped ahead of the Red Devils with a three point streak. Shortly after the streak, there was a very nice block at the net by Ephrata players Addison Mills and Nayelie Alvarez, but it didn’t hinder East Valley and the guest team took the point. East Valley tried to continue to keep up, but were behind 11-16 before East Valley called a timeout. Whatever was said in that timeout seemed to fire up the guest team because it came out to score three points in a row. From there, the game was a pretty even match, with East Valley returning each point Ephrata made.
The first set came down to the wire with Ephrata at 23 and East Valley at 21 points. The Tigers were not going to let East Valley get any closer, scoring two consecutive points and taking the first match 25-23.
“We struggled getting going, we struggled closing out a couple points, we were down a couple players, but we were able to shift a couple people around different positions so we weren’t necessarily firing on all cylinders, but we definitely made some really good adjustments,” said Ephrata head coach Britney MacLeod.
In the second set, East Valley again came out scoring the first two points of the game before Ephrata could get on the scoreboard. One of the points that got Ephrata on the board was by Hayden Mills, with a beautiful spike East Valley couldn’t recover. Again the game was back and forth, with each team getting even with what the other team had just scored.
When Ephrata was barely leading the score, 8-7, East Valley had four points in a row and took the lead. The Tigers stepped up and returned with a six point streak and took the lead back. Ephrata had a slight lead of 18-15 when East Valley called a timeout. This didn’t seem to help East Valley much because Ephrata took set two 25-19.
Set three wasn’t as competitive and Ephrata immediately took the lead. Ephrata continued to dominate the score from 6-2, 16-7, 18-11 before taking the last set 25-12.
MacLeod said Ephrata is pushing for a league title, but its ultimate goal is state this year.
“These kids, they work hard and they wanna win. That’s not something we coach, it’s just who they are,” said MacLeod.
