Prep Volleyball: Turning buzz into a buzz saw

Published 11:32 pm Thursday, September 11, 2008

MARYSVILLE — Lofty preseason predictions have been heaped on the Monroe High School volleyball team. But the Bearcats only care about what happens on the court.

“We’re trying to focus on not worrying about what newspapers are saying. We’re just focused on playing our game,” said Monroe setter Kaitlyn Drew.

She was referring to things like the Class 4A preseason state coaches’ poll, which ranks Monroe No. 3. There are also buzzed-about individual accolades, like the one from PrepVolleyball.com that ranks Monroe senior Kylin Munoz the No. 6 senior in America.

So far Monroe hasn’t been distracted by hype. The Bearcats improved to 2-0 this season with a 3-1 victory against Marysville-Pilchuck Thursday in a non-division match at Jim Linden Fieldhouse.

Fueled by Munoz (24 kills and 10 digs), Drew (39 assists) and Megan Birch (14 digs, 12 kills), Monroe overcame slow starts in all four games to beat M-P (0-2). The game scores were 25-19, 22-25, 25-21, 25-20.

With Munoz serving, Monroe took control of the final game with a 10-0 run that made it 24-18. Later, Birch finished it with a hard kill on an assist from Drew.

Although Monroe has just two seniors (Munoz and Drew), it hopes to improve on last year’s performance, which culminated with winning the eighth-place trophy at the 4A state tournament.

“We’re ready to go back and do even better,” said Munoz, who had eight kills in Game 1 but struggled at times throughout the match with keeping her jump serve in play.

Monroe and M-P are expected to contend for the Western Conference North Division title this season — coaches ranked them No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in The Herald’s preseason poll.

Although Thursday’s match didn’t count in the North standings, it was a preview of the Oct. 30 rematch at Monroe High, which will be a division contest.

“We need to get better,” Marysville-Pilchuck head coach Shelly Johnson said, “and we were a lot better tonight then we were Tuesday night (in a 3-2 loss against Snohomish). And so if we keep building on that we’ll be OK.”

M-P’s top performers were Emily Boerger (13 kills), Jade Thompson (17 digs) and Jenna Welsh (11 kills). The Tomahawks gradually did better trying to block Munoz’s blistering hits at the net. But Monroe had too much power and generated timely serving in the deciding game.

“We’ve still got some kids that are young and they need to get tougher mentally. … They’re very intimidated by some players,” said coach Johnson, referring to Munoz.

Munoz, a 6-foot-1 senior who verbally committed to Brigham Young University, “controlled the match all by herself,” Johnson said.

M-P started well in every game. It had leads of 12-8 in Game 1, 5-0 in Game 2, 4-1 in Game 3 and 18-14 in Game 4. But each time Monroe battled back. One reason for the Bearcats’ early difficulties might be that they’re not completely in sync … yet.

“We have a young team,” Drew said, “so we’re trying to get used to playing together.”

Monroe’s starting lineup featured three sophomores and its rotation included a freshman, Kendal Munoz. The team definitely had some jitters.

“They came out tonight looking like they still have a lot of nerves,” said April Munoz, Monroe’s first-year head coach. “They’re still really nervous and they’re not as comfortable with one another yet.”

But they sure looked comfortable celebrating a victory, after Birch’s match-ending spike slammed off the floor.

Writer Mike Cane: mcane@heraldnet.com. Check out the prep sports blog Double Team at cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/heraldnet/doubleteam.