With a great series of games last week, the Mount Si High School girls volleyball team made short work of Bellevue on Monday, Oct. 6, sweeping the Wolverines in three, 25-8, 25-16, 25-19.
Miranda Pratt led the way for Mount Si with 12 kills, six aces and eight digs in a match that lasted about an hour. Aubrey Larion had a solid six-kill, two-ace and five-dig performance, while Robyn Schirmer added 26 assists in addition to four kills and four digs apiece. Bethany Frieler, back after missing the Juanita game on Monday, Sept. 29, had a good night as well, with 13 digs.
Last Wednesday, Oct. 8, Mount Si welcomed a large crowd of middle school volleyball players, their coaches and parents for their match with Liberty. The Wildcats showed their future players how it’s done at this level, as they rolled over the Patriots. And once again, a senior star made her mark on history.
Pratt had 14 aces on the match, which may be a school record for most aces in a match by a player, as the Wildcats took care of Liberty 25-11, 25-10, 25-7. Since no records appear to have been kept in the past, it is not clear if this was a record or not. That said, it was the most aces in a match in coach Bonnie Foote’s tenure with the school, breaking a mark set a few years ago by Maggie Olson, who graduated in 2004 and is a senior this year at Central Washington University.
“We played well. We’ve been working so hard in practice as a team and we’ve been improving every single day, and we showed it on the court,” Pratt said.
The Wildcats got out in front in a hurry in game one and didn’t look back. Several kills by Pratt and Mackenzie Peerboom lifted Mount Si in the frame, and solid play by Schirmer and Zoe Gogan helped the effort. The Patriots tried to mount a comeback, but it was short-lived, and Pratt closed things out with a kill.
The second stanza started out the same way as the first, as Pratt, Peerboom and Gogan’s kills, along with a pair of service aces by Aubrey Larion, sparked the Wildcats. Pratt came up to serve with the score 16-6, and promptly started out her memorable night serving, with a threesome of aces. She had an additional ace later in this sequence.
There was more to come in the third frame. Liberty again tried to mount a rally, but a double hit on their part ended any thoughts of a comeback, and gave the Wildcats the middle game.
Pratt and Schirmer set things up with kills in game three, then Pratt came up on serve, 13-5, and got in a groove. After all was said and done, the Idaho-bound senior logged 10 straight aces, which is also a likely Mount Si school record.
Foote cleared her bench, and Baylee Sinner set up the match point with a kill to get possession back from the Patriots at 24-7, then finished it off with an ace of her own.
For Sinner, having her teammates behind her was important.
“I was really nervous, but everyone was really supportive,” she said.
Look for Sinner and fellow junior varsity players Erika Clark and Amanda Beekman among others to get playing time, as Mount Si is still dealing with injury problems. In addition to Shelagh Macaulay, still out with her broken arm, Amanda Gates and Paige Dahlberg both were knocked out of action last week with injuries, so the efforts of the junior varsity players will be key.
“Whenever you have injuries and you lose players, it affects your team for sure,” Foote said. “When a younger kid can step in a varsity match and put their serve in or put the ball in play, that’s definitely going to give me confidence in them. They need to do that because we are short on numbers right now.”
In addition to her 14 aces, Pratt also added 12 kills. Schirmer had 23 assists, and Cortney Tubbs had a solid effort with 12 digs.
Mount Si hosts Sammamish at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15.
