Mavericks sweep Sunnyside, improve to 6-3

MOSES LAKE — Thursday night’s 3-0 sweep of Sunnyside improved the Mavericks to 4-3 in the Columbia Basin Big 9 this fall and 6-3 overall, as Moses Lake began its second run through the league.

The Mavericks were coming off a bye and hadn’t taken the court for a match since Oct. 3.

“It was nice having that break off – we were tired, and they kind of got rejuvenated,” head coach Krystal Trammell said. “We talked about our goals and what they had to do for the second half of the season. Tonight was fantastic to start implementing that.”

After Sunnyside took a 2-1 lead early in the opening set, the Mavericks scored on 13 of the next 17 rallies, including five straight at one point, to take a convincing lead before holding on for a 25-11 win in the frame.

“We always say that they need to go out aggressively and need to take charge,” Trammell said. “Keep that same energy level, and just get to 25 – five points at a time, just get to 25. If a mistake happens, brush it off.”

The second and third sets played out similarly to one another, and both finished with set scores of 25-12 – Moses Lake opened with powerful spikes from senior Makenna Stuart in the second and junior Kardyn Martinez in the third to take 1-0 leads in both sets. The Mavericks won the second set on a failed rally by the Grizzlies and clinched the third set on an ace by senior Madison Bond.

“Sometimes we’ll win a set, and we’ll come back out and the energy is low – they were able to maintain the energy the whole match,” Trammell said. “Our goal was to get everybody in, and we did and were still productive. It just shows everyone can make an impact on that court.”

Thursday’s win was Moses Lake’s third sweep of the season – the two previous ones came against Othello on Sept. 10 and Sunnyside on Sept. 12. The Mavericks are fourth in the Big 9 standings as of Friday; Wenatchee leads at 7-0, followed by Davis at 5-2 and West Valley (Yakima) at 4-2. Moses Lake is 4-3 after Thursday’s win.

“I think everybody was super excited just to be back out there,” Martinez said. “It’s been a while since we (last) played – we were struggling a little bit, and do I think this game really helped us come together.”

Strong performances from Moses Lake’s hitters were key in Thursday’s win; junior Caitlin Decubber led the Mavs with 11 kills, followed by Stuart with 10 and Martinez and Bond, who both had seven. Stuart finished with 12 digs, Bond had nine and Martinez and sophomore Madison Witwer both posted eight. Senior Kaelsy Wiltbank had 29 assists and also finished with eight digs.

“It started with our passes, like we always say, ‘Start with our pass and get with our set’ and kind of go from there,” Stuart said. “We were able to read that there wasn’t a huge block on us, and we used that to our advantage.”

Martinez had eight blocks while Decubber and junior Lilliana Roylance had three.

“You really just have to track with your eyes – we just held off a little bit and followed their arms,” Martinez said. “Get up there and get on it.”

Effective on-court communication, which has been present all season for Moses Lake, was present on Thursday night as well.

“We’ve tried to work on it even more as a team, just talking more,” Stuart said. “Reading each other, telling each other what’s up on the block, where to hit, where to place – I think starting with a lot of communication is huge for us. During practice we work on it; we’re loud, we have fun. We try to take practice energy and bring it to games, and heighten it more.”

In addition to the match on Thursday, the Moses Lake volleyball program hosted its Pink Night; players wore special uniforms with pink numbers and pink arm sleeves, while coaches and fans in the stands also donned pink outfits.

“We have so many people that are affected by breast cancer and cancer in general, so we wanted to bring that to light through our program,” Trammell said. “We raised $500 that we donated to the Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation, then we always have our honorary captains – tonight they were the football coaches, and they brought a lot of energy to the bench.”

Youth players who attended the Lil Mav volleyball camp over the summer took the court during warm-ups with the high school players.

“It’s great because they can see the girls and everything they learned at camp being implemented here on the court,” Trammell said.

Box Score 

SNYS: 11-12-12 0

MSLK: 25-25-25 3

    Moses Lake senior Makenna Stuart (10) serves the ball during the second set against Sunnyside on Thursday. Stuart led the Mavericks with three aces and had 10 kills, the second-most on the team.
  

    Moses Lake junior Kardyn Martinez (14) starts to spike the ball Thursday against Sunnyside. Martinez had seven kills and eight blocks.