SNOHOMISH — The Glacier Peak High School student section, dressed in all white, swung their arms from side to side as “Party in the U.S.A.” blasted over the loudspeakers during an intermission after their volleyball team won the second set against Jackson High School on Wednesday night.
The party vibes were temporarily paused when the Timberwolves secured the third set, but the Grizzlies still came out on top with a 3-1 victory over their Wesco 4A rivals, improving their record to 6-0 overall and 3-0 in league play. The set scores were 25-13, 25-12, 26-28 and 25-19.
“We knew it was going to be a battle. Even when we were up 2-0, I knew it was going to be a fight,” said Glacier Peak coach Dave Thorn, whose team entered Wednesday having beaten Lake Stevens 3-1 on Monday. “(Jackson) made some adjustments to their service that really helped them (in the third set). … We got on our heels a little bit, and they got themselves a lead.
“If we can control the first contact and we can play the game on our side of the net, we can compete with anybody,” he continued. “We showed flashes out here of what we could do — we’ve just got to be able to do that consistently. And it’s just cutting down on errors. When the other team makes a run — which they usually will, most teams do — we need to weather that and then just keep playing our game and not change what we do because they made a couple plays.”
Grizzlies senior setter Lucy Cornelius registered 41 assists and eight aces and went 27 for 29 at the service line. The score was tied 5-5 in the second set, and Cornelius’ serving efforts helped the Grizzlies score 15 straight points to extend their lead to 20-5 before the Timberwolves responded.
Senior outside hitter Ava Nowak had 18 kills, senior libero Tessa Mossburg 12 digs, and junior outside/opposite hitter Claire Sedenquist and senior middle blocker Hanna Ligons each charted 10 kills.
For the first, second and fourth sets, Jackson (3-2, 1-2) was unable to control and return many of Glacier Peak’s serves. The Timberwolves also weren’t able to counter the Grizzlies’ defensive blocks at the net, several of which came from Ligons.
“We know what this team can do at practice. We show it every single day,” Ligons said. “Especially with the crowd like this and it’s our rival, it’s so fun to kind of get riled up.
“(Jackson) realized that if they lose (the third set), it’s over for them. Because the first two sets, I don’t think that’s how they could play,” she continued. “Clearly the third set we saw how they could play. … We started off slow because we expected to win, but they came back because they knew they wanted to win. … And we kind of just let it get by us.”
Ligons noted that every time Glacier Peak has played Jackson at home, the contest has gone to five sets, which has been the case since 2022.
“We were like, ‘We’re not doing that again this year. We’re going to take care of them right now.’ We know what we can do because we proved that the first two sets, so we’re just going to keep that and carry that to the fourth set and not to a fifth.”
One of Jackson’s starting players got injured in warmups, which coach Mindy Staudinger said resulted in last-minute changes to the rotation. But what changed in the third set for the Timberwolves was “significant adjustments … which proved to be good adjustments.”
“I switched my libero to be liberoing for my outside hitters instead of my middle and then just did one sub for my other middle, and had my middle, Ravenna Coleman, play all the way around,” said Staudinger, whose squad trailed only twice in the third set but also faced match point at 25-24. “She’s actually a good defender and a good passer, and she was one of our highest passers on the night. So lesson learned for me.
“What I’m most proud of is that I just frankly told them, ‘Sometimes you may get beat, and that’s OK.’ But set one and set two were not indicative of that. It was indicative of us beating ourselves,” she continued. “And I said, ‘I’m never going to be mad if you lose when you compete, so please compete. You’re not doing that right now.’ And they rose to that.”
Senior setter/opposite hitter Addison Eastwood had 11 kills and 10 digs and Riley Sevilla 11 assists. Senior middle blocker Coleman tallied 11 assists.
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