Cassandra Powers keeps her eye on the volleyball. (Julie Wheat photo)
“Back up and be ready!”
One of the visiting Forks fans was insistent on that strategy Friday as their JV volleyball squad clashed with Coupeville.
Spoiler alert: The Spartans did not and were not.
Led by a power surge that saw seven different players rack up a kill, the host Wolves ran away with a 25-19, 25-12, 11-15 win to nail down their sixth victory in their last nine contests.
Now 6-8 on the season after nabbing the non-conference win, Alita Blouin’s scrappy young guns wrap their season next Tuesday, October 27 with another home rumble, this time against Friday Harbor.
Squaring off with Forks, which came a long way to get hammered, Coupeville jumped out to an early lead and never relented.
Strong service work from Emma Leavitt and Emily Rains staked the Wolves to a quick 5-1 advantage, with an ace from Leavitt crawling up a rival player’s face and delivering a wicked kiss before ricocheting away.
Once Forks started to get its returns back over the net, Wolf sniper Cassandra Powers was here, there, and everywhere, patrolling the net and swatting away most incoming volleyballs for rally-ending kills.
The Spartans hung tough for a bit, but eventually the power show from Powers, especially when supplemented by a couple of explosive smashes from Emily Rains, proved to be too much.
Annabelle Cundiff and Leavitt popped a few more winners from the service line and it was on to set #2, where the lead blossomed out to 19-6 at one point.
Powers, having herself a big-time performance, alternated between scorching serves and even-hotter kills at the net, while Olivia Martin and Addison Jacobson joined the ace parade.
Martin, who got the call-up to join the varsity team later in the evening, also crunched a kill from way back, the ball skidding across the net and slicing away from the defense.
With the third set just for practice, Forks made a late stand, breaking an 11-11 tie by scoring the final four points of the match.
Before then, Sabrina Judnich, Powers, Rains, and Jacobson all delivered winners, while Martin and Leavitt teamed up for the best point of the rumble.
Madly scrambling to her right and reaching as far as she possibly could, Martin saved a runaway ball by the length of her fingertips, flicking it back skyward and setting up Leavitt for a tip winner which froze the Spartans in place.
Friday stats:
Annabelle Cundiff — 1 dig, 3 aces
Addison Jacobson — 1 kill, 1 dig, 2 aces
Sabrina Judnich — 1 kill
Emma Leavitt — 1 kill, 2 digs, 7 assists, 3 aces
Olivia Martin — 1 kill, 9 digs, 1 assist, 4 aces
Cassandra Powers — 7 kills, 1 dig, 3 aces
Emily Rains — 5 kills, 4 digs
Scarlett Spencer — 1 kill
