It’s all a mental game for the Mountlake Terrace volleyball team.
In a pair of matches at last weekend’s Edmonds District jamboree, the Hawks fared well against Meadowdale and then struggled against Edmonds-Woodway.
“When we’re playing well and we don’t make a mistake, we seem to play higher and higher,” said Mountlake Terrace coach Marietta Snyder. “When we start making mistakes, we start getting down on ourselves.”
But overall Snyder liked what she saw of her team, which has only two returning seniors in Megan Brown and Tiffany Staley.
The Hawks are young but do have four returning juniors who saw extensive action in 2007.
“They’re very strong,” Snyder said. “They play club ball. … They’re very even and they don’t get up and down on themselves.”
The four returning juniors include Jenna Donohue, Christine Jenson and Stephanie McGee, who all played on varsity, and Kaitlyn Hatch, a junior varsity player, who is moving up.
Two freshman — Chrysandra Dresser and Leah Lechtenberg — made the varsity squad.
“They’re just a little raw, but I think they’re going to put a new spark into our team,” Snyder said.
The Hawks don’t have much height with Brown, the tallest player, at 5-foot-10. The rest of the group averages about 5-6, according to Snyder.
“We’re short but we have a lot of hops,” she added.
The offense is led by Jenson, a returning setter, and Staley, who can play both middle and outside.
“I have a strong setter … when she was a freshman, I swung her up,” Snyder said. “(Staley) is all around very, very strong. She’s very athletic even though she’s only 5-6.”
Right now the Mountlake Terrace offense is ahead of the defense.
“If I can get my defense a little bit tuned up, I just think we can cause a lot of havoc for the other teams,” Snyder said. “Our serves are pretty good. … It’s just our defense is very slow. We need to quicken up our defense.”
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