The Newport Knights girls’ volleyball team came into last Friday’s game with the Mount Si Wildcats undefeated in KingCo 3A, and they left Mount Si High School still unbeaten, winning three games to one (15-2, 15-6, 11-15 and 15-8).

The score didn’t really tell the story, as Mount Si battled from the late stages of the second game on against Newport.

“We played great defense [the] last two games; I thought we played awesome. Our first two games we struggled. I don’t think we knew what we were up against,” said coach Bonnie Foote.

The match started late after the Knights’ team bus arrived at Mount Si just before the scheduled 4 p.m. start – about 25 minutes after they were supposed to arrive.

At about 4:30 p.m., just as play was about to get under way, one of the referees arrived and the match was further delayed while he suited up. The second referee arrived soon after as the first game began.

Strong play by outside hitters Shannon Marquardson and Shannon Stewart propelled Newport to a convincing first-game victory, during which the Knights controlled possession.

The second game was no different, as the Knights continued to put on the pressure and ran out to a 14-2 lead. It looked as if the Wildcats were being run out of the gym by the Knights.

The Wildcats made a brief run late, behind strong serving from Alison Neuschwander, but Stewart’s kill put the second game away for Newport. Although the Wildcats’ rally was cut short, it offered a glimpse of what was coming.

“We made some adjustments, and we put our best blocker on their best hitter as much as we could, and at first it was tough to adjust to, but after that they picked it up,” said Foote.

In the third game, the Wildcats broke out to a 6-2 advantage behind the serving of Emily White and two big kills by Randilinn Cason. The Knights tried to sneak their way back into the game, but Jaclyn Boals’ play at the net and a Neuschwander dig kept the Wildcats in front.

Newport finally tied the game at 11-11, but Maggie Olson closed out the game with two consecutive service aces to get the Wildcats back in the match.

The Knights broke out to a 7-0 lead in the fourth and deciding game behind the strong play of middle blocker Chelsea Lewis. Despite a comeback from Mount Si, led by Neuschwander – who made an athletic one-handed dig at one point – Marissa Hill and Chandra Rappin, among others, the Knights put the game, and match, away.

Newport went home with another conference win, but Mount Si’s performance in the third and fourth games gave Foote something to work from, as the team prepares for a critical week of matches against Cedarcrest and Interlake.

“I just want to build on this match, to be honest with you. I just want to build. And if that’s the best team in our league and we played them as tough as we did tonight the last two games, you know what, there’s no excuse for us to lose another match. But you never know what can happen,” Foote said.

“[I’m] really excited for that game [against Cedarcrest on Wednesday, Oct. 9], but I know that we can beat them. It was pretty close last time,” Boals said.