EVERETT — The defensive-minded Shorecrest volleyball team finally found its match with Everett’s collection of heavy hitters.
In a neck-and-neck battle of unbeatens, the Seagulls pounded out a 22-25, 25-19, 25-20, 25-21 victory Monday night on their home court to move closer to a second straight Western Conference South Division title.
“They have a little more size than we do and we had trouble blocking them,” Shorecrest coach Dave Morehouse said. “That’s kind of been our issue the past couple years. But we did a real nice job digging the ball and gave a great effort.”
Shorecrest went on to top Mariner 25-17, 25-15, 25-14 Tuesday and was scheduled to close out the regular season Thursday against Lynnwood.
Coming into Monday’s match the Scots (7-1 league, 13-1 overall) had won 36 consecutive games dating back to their season opener.
“We were really anticipating it,” outside hitter Emily Gould said. “Our undefeated season kind of came to this. We played defense pretty well, but we weren’t as strong offensively as we needed to be for this match.”
Shorecrest effectively handled Everett’s nonstop spikes early on to become the first team this season to take a game off the Seagulls.
Neither side led by more than two in the opening game until the Scots scored five straight points to grab a 12-8 advantage. Everett had four chances to pull even, but couldn’t convert.
Gould directed a dig to setter Anna Herold, who returned the ball to the 5-foot-6 senior for a smash that gave Shorecrest its largest lead at 21-16. Herold led the Scots with 35 assists.
The second game was just as tight until the Seagulls broke open a 15-all tie with an 8-2 spurt that included two kills by Becca Crossen and back-to-back blocks by Elaina Olson.
That momentum seemed to spill over into the third game as Everett opened up a 10-3 edge, prompting the Scots to call a timeout. Shorecrest responded with a 7-1 run to close the gap to one point.
“We decided we needed to serve more aggressively when we made that big run,” Morehouse said. “We needed to put more service pressure on them. If we get them passing the ball to the net all the time with all the big hitters they have, it’s hard to stop.”
After taking a timeout of their own, the Seagulls stretched their cushion back to seven and eventually put away the Scots with kills from Katelyn Price, Olson and Crossen.
“We’ll slow the ball down a bit and we’ll dig the ball a lot, but it just keeps coming at you because they have so many weapons,” Morehouse said. “It’s not just one or two, it’s like four or five.”
Capitalizing on three Shorecrest errors, Everett stormed to a 7-1 edge in the fourth game. Gould sparked a late rally by serving out six points in a row and Becky Scherer’s kill gave the Scots their only lead at 19-18.
The Seagulls regained control by sweeping the next four points and closed out the match with a kill from Price and Nicole Barhanovich’s block.
“After the first game we made way too many errors on our side, hitting it out or hitting into the block. I could be wrong, but I really think we could have won,” Gould said.
“You could see it on our side when they got a point we were completely dead. People got really upset when they made errors.”
Scherer finished with 14 kills and three blocks, Lauren Herold added 25 digs and Mary Tseng had nine kills for the Scots. Jennifer Luatua paced Everett with 13 kills and 29 digs, Barhanovich had 44 assists and Olson had 12 kills.
Gould expects the Scots will draw motivation from their first defeat since last year’s Class 3A state tournament. Shorecrest opens the playoffs Oct. 25 in a loser-out, winner-to-district contest.
“We’re going to be (angry) enough that hopefully it’s not going to happen again,” Gould said. “Obviously we’re not enjoying the feeling of losing.”
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