Hundreds of serves over the past few weeks paid off in a big way for the South Whidbey volleyball team in its first match Tuesday, a 3-0 rout of island rival Coupeville.
The Falcons’ top four servers tallied 16 aces alone and made quick work of the Wolves, winning 25-8, 25-16, 25-12. Senior middle hitter Abby Hodson and junior setter Marina Alber credited their preseason regimen of hitting 50 serves every practice, equaling a minimum of 500 serves leading to the first match against Coupeville, with South Whidbey head coach Mandy Jones estimating the overall amount of serves to be closer to 800 for each Falcon.
“It’s always nice to beat Coupeville,” said Hodson, though she added that they aren’t in the same league as Coupeville left the Cascade Conference for the Olympic Conference this year.
Coupeville’s first play resulted in a lost point for a catch violation, and things didn’t get much easier for the Wolves inside South Whidbey’s gym. The Falcons used a series of three and four-point runs to break away in the first set, capped by three straight aces by Alber and a booming kill by Hodson.
“The first game was awesome,” said Alber, who finished with 12 assists and four aces. “We were working together, talking. We’re just an all-around good team.”
South Whidbey struggled to hold serve as dominantly in the second set. A quick Falcon lead disappeared almost as quickly as the Wolves bounced back to cut a 7-0 start to 11-6. Jones called a time out after the Wolves rattled off two straight kills by senior Hailey Hammer. Ball movement and serving carried the Falcons, with three of their finals points coming on two aces and a tip kill.
Errors plagued Coupeville in the third and final set, in which 10 points were lost on mis-hits and faults. Falcon senior hitter Anne Madsen powered South Whidbey to the third set and match victory, scoring an ace and three kills, including the booming match winner; she finished with seven digs, six kills and two aces.
South Whidbey’s hitters seemed to have more power behind their swings and a particular precision to their kills. Hodson — five aces, four kills — couldn’t identify what changed from last year to now for several Falcon hitters such as Madsen, Calli Patterson and herself, other than the maturation of being a senior.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe because I’m a senior, I wanted to win so bad.”
After the victory, South Whidbey students formed a tunnel for the Falcon players to run through and be congratulated on the school’s first victory over Coupeville this season (football and girls soccer had already lost contests to the Wolves).
All the magic of the first match vanished in a close yet distant loss to Cedar Park Christian on Thursday. The Eagles, newcomers to the Cascade Conference, swept the Falcons 25-17, 25-21, 25-23. Serving remained a strength for South Whidbey, with Madsen, Hodson and Bryant recording two aces each, but were overpowered by Eagles Sam Dreschel (16 kills, eight digs) and Alexyss Nelson (25 assists, five digs).
The loss put South Whidbey down 0-1 in conference play and 1-1 overall, having split against fellow class 1A teams, ahead of a home-and-away series against Granite Falls on Sept. 16 and Archbishop Murphy on Sept. 18.
