SWC puts finishing touches on a state bid

The No. 8-ranked Redsides had all aspects of the game working like a well-oiled machine with the serves, passes and hits all delivering the necessary blows for a 25-10 win and the match in Friday’s 1A state sub-round matchup played in Maupin.

“It was amazing. It is such a great feeling to sit there and see everyone playing in-sync,” said SWC junior Kyrsten Sprouse. “We would pass it up to our setters, and they got those great passes to our hitters, who were putting the ball on the floor. I caught myself smiling, because we were doing such a good job and working together.”

In that fourth set, Emily Ellis gave her squad a 13-3 lead, after serving seven consecutive points, the final two on aces, and then Sprouse, Allie Noland, Madisen Davis, and Sprouse again, dropped four straight kills, and Ana Popchock added a stuffed block, making it an 18-4 margin.

Ellis had another kill, and following a hit out by NCC, which ran the score to 20-4, Jacqueline Noland fired home an ace, giving the Redsides a 21-4 advantage.

NCC inched to within 24-10, but a net violation gave SWC the final point for its 25-10 win and the program’s first state site trip since the 2000 campaign, when the team finished fourth overall.

“Winning districts for the first time in South Wasco history last week was crazy to me, it was mind-blowing,” Allie Noland said. “Coming in today and winning this game, makes me feel happy, as a senior, to see all my teammates working together. I have been playing with them since middle school, so it is really rewarding to see all that hard work pay off to get us to state. I am proud of everyone on the team.”

That fourth-set performance was a solid response for the Redsides, who ended up losing the first set by a 25-21 margin, where the Redsides committed five service errors.

From the second set on, however, SWC had five combined serving miscues.

“One of our focuses this year is letting mistakes go and not getting down on ourselves,” Allie Noland said. “After the first set we lost, we got together as a team and we put it in our heads that we were going to win this second game and make it clear into the last game. I think after talking about it and us focusing on that aspect, it helped us put the past mistakes behind us and look forward to our kills, to our spaces, our passes, our hits and to our next game.”

SWC evened the match at 1-apiece in the second set by a 25-10 margin, as Jada Myers posted four kills and a block, Ellis and Davis had two aces each and Allie Noland added two kills and another ace.

The final two points came on kills by Myers and Sprouse.

With the match tied at 1-apiece, SWC came out in the third set, jumping to leads of 4-2, 10-5, 13-7 and 18-12 before a timeout by NCC.

The Redsides finished on a 7-5 run after the timeout, with consecutive kills by Allie Noland and Davis, giving SWC a 25-17 win and a 2-1 lead in the match.

It took us a little while to finally get in our rhythm, but then we just played free and easy,” Barton said. “We missed five or six serves in that first game and then five the rest of the match, so it was important that we weren’t handing over points on our serves and also our hits or passing.”

On the service line, SWC converted 82 of 93 for 88 percent, as both Allie and Jacqueline Noland went 18 of 19, Davis was 17 of 19, and Ellis went 9 of 10.

At the net, the Redsides hit on 99 of 108 swings with 45 kills, led by Myers, who totaled 16 for the match on 37 of 39 swings.

Allie Noland tacked on 10 kills on 12 of 13, Popchock was a perfect 12 for 12 with eight kills, Sprouse dropped four kills and Davis went for three kill shots.

Ellis, a senior, makes a state appearance as a newcomer, and Barton said that she is both happy and proud to get Allie Noland and Popchock to state in their final season.

Last year, they came close, but lost two straight district games, so there are reasons to feel like the monkey is off their backs.

“Allie and Ana are just quality people,” Barton said. “They go hard, they play hard, they are smart and they are going to go places, outside of volleyball. It is just so cool they get to finish their fourth year with a pretty good accomplishment. I told them I wanted them to go out and play the game the way they know how to play the game and we will live with the result. I thought they battled pretty good.”

At state on Friday, SWC (24-8 overall) takes on No. 2 Country Christian (27-5) on Court 2 starting at 3:15 p.m.

An opening-round win puts the Redsides in the semifinals for a match at 8:30 p.m. that night.

A loss has SWC playing at 10 a.m. on Saturday in a consolation match.

All this week, the Redsides are going to be in practice working on the fundamentals of the game, while also adding in an element of playing calm.

The scenario and the scene will cause a few nerves, but Allie Noland and her teammates are going to give it everything they can to hoist a trophy.

“We are happy to be there, and we want to shock the world as well. We want to push as far as we can,” Allie Noland said. “It has been awhile since this program has made it to state, and all of us have never been there before, but we want to show people that we are proud to be there, that we earned it and we worked hard through our many years of high school to get there.”