Jaimee Masters delivered three kills, five service aces, and two digs Tuesday, as Coupeville’s JV volleyball squad cruised to a big win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Taygin Jump delivers one of her nine kills. (Brian Vick photo)
Own the service line, own the match.
With Jaimee Masters and Maddie Georges going off at the stripe Tuesday, combining for nine aces while winning 32 points off their serves, the Coupeville High School JV volleyball squad was unbeatable.
While the final score, with the Wolves bouncing visiting Granite Falls 25-15, 25-22, 25-17, wasn’t a complete rout, there was never a moment when it felt like the home team was in the slightest danger.
Coupeville, now a shiny 7-1 in North Sound Conference play, 10-2 overall, trailed a couple of times, sure.
But 1-0 and 2-1 deficits in sets played to 25 points aren’t exactly the stuff of potential upsets.
It took the Wolves maybe two minutes to get fully chugging, and then the bombs started dropping.
Knotted up at 3-3 in the first set, Coupeville paged its nuclear bomb-launching outside hitter, with Kylie Chernikoff immediately answering the clarion call to arms.
Back-to-back big bombs off of the back line, with the second Chernikoff blast carving a path through a wave of defenders unwilling to stop the ball by sacrificing their faces, kicked things into high gear.
With Masters at the line, pegging aces, the lead soon soared to 12-4 and the Wolves never looked back.
Alita Blouin and Georges kicked in short, but sweetly effective, runs of their own at the line in the opening set, while Chernikoff, Jill Prince, and Taygin Jump took turns administering put-away shots.
A kill from Ryanne Knoblich ricocheted off a Granite player’s elbow, while Masters showed off the whole skill-set, dropping back-to-back kills from opposite sides of the court.
The second and third set were more of the same upbeat song for the Wolves, with Prince delivering a bone-crunching block that almost brought CHS coach Chris Smith to tears.
Happy, happy tears, but tears.
Georges and Masters controlled much of the set with their service games, while Jump decided to try and collect every single kill and put-away.
I said, every single one.
During one stretch, Jump had three consecutive winners, each offering a different style of attack.
On the first, the fab frosh came bounding in from the left side to smash the ball away from a Tiger.
Then, Jump tiptoed through the (invisible) tulips around the net on the next play, somehow staying a mere millimeter away from crashing through the barrier while controlling her body enough to flick a tip through the defense for another point.
And, just to complete the trifecta and debut a third dance of joy, she walloped the volleyball, which was screaming “Leave me alone, Taygin, you beast!,” as she windmilled a winner off a Granite player’s elbow.
Needing to catch her breath, at least for a moment, Jump ceded the spotlight to others after the one-two-three punch, so Anya Leavell sprang into action.
A sweet lil’ slicer kissed the court for a point, a tip evaded the defense for yet another, and then Leavell rose up, twirled through the clouds, and blasted a kill to complete her own trifecta of savage success.
With the Wolves rolling merrily along, everyone delivered big-time plays down the stretch, with Prince dominating at the net, Ivy Leedy popping a winner or two, and Heidi Meyers lashing sizzlin’ serves.
Not to be forgotten, Chernikoff, who tore up the Tigers defense with a match-high 14 kills, delivered one of the hardest-hit winners of the season at any level.
Roaring in from the left side of the floor as Georges flicked a picture-perfect set into the air, Kylie the Killer elevated, then hung in the air for an eternity, half her body above the net.
One word, three letters, one syllable, could be heard coming across the floor, almost in a whisper, and it sent chills up the spines of every Tiger she was eye-balling.
“Run!!!”
The smart ones did.
The rest closed their eyes and prayed for their very souls, as Chernikoff punched a hole through the universe, the ball screaming downward to rip up the floorboards, then blow a hole through the back wall of the gym.
And that was about the last time any Granite player was willing to get anywhere near the ball. Maybe ever again.
For Smith, who was rockin’ and rollin’ from his perch next to the bench, wearing the smile of a coach who loves his job and loves seeing his players blow up the world, it was a nice cap to a strong team-wide performance.
Chernikoff added seven digs to her massive pile of kills, while Georges dealt out 26 assists to go with four aces.
Jump (nine kills, four digs), Masters (three kills, five aces, two digs), Prince (four kills and that eye-popping block), Leavell (three kills), Blouin (three assists, two digs, and some quietly spectacular saves to keep plays going), Knoblich (two kills), and Leedy (two kills) rounded out the stat sheet.
Not to be forgotten, Meyers and Abby Mulholland, in street clothes as she recovers from a concussion, were exuberant supporters of their teammates.
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