The Battle Ground volleyball team wanted a district championship, and the Tigers wanted to take care of it on Wednesday.
They accomplished both goals.
The Class 4A Greater St. Helens League champion proved it at the district tournament, beating Union in four sets in the semifinals, then dispatching Camas in the championship match, sweeping the Papermakers.
The Tigers rallied from a 23-15 deficit in the second set of the championship match.
“They had to fight and to not give up,” Battle Ground coach Cheyanne Knight said of her strategy session during a timeout. “I asked them, ‘When are you going to choose to be great?’ I guess they responded because that was a heckuva comeback.”
The Tigers scored nine of the next 10 points to tie the set at 24, then took down the Papermakers 28-26.
Brooke Van Sickle, who had 19 kills in the match, credited the coach’s pep talk.
“Let’s give it our all to see what we could do,” Van Sickle said. “We weren’t expecting much. Let’s just try and see what we could do.”
Ashley Watkins, who had 10 kills, said the challenge wasn’t necessarily to win the set, but just play better.
“We had to pull together,” Watkins said. “After the first set, we lost a lot of our focus.”
Then the Tigers saw the score: 23-15 for Camas.
“We had to get a rhythm going for the next set,” Watkins said.
Or just win that set and cruise in the third. The Papermakers, tired from a five-set thriller over Skyview in their semifinal, ran out of gas after losing the big lead in the second set.
Scores for the match were 25-16, 28-26, 25-10.
Battle Ground will host Skyline or Redmond in a bi-district, one-match playoff on Saturday with a berth to the Class 4A state tournament on the line. Camas will go to Eastlake in its one-match playoff to get to state.
“No matter what, we got our first goal,” said Camas coach Michelle Allen, referring to surviving in Wednesday’s elimination round. “The Skyview match took a lot out of us, and Battle Ground is a good team.”
The main thing for the Papermakers is they are still playing volleyball beyond the district tournament.
“Everyone thought we weren’t going to make it,” Allen said. “We worked hard every single day, and it shows. I’m very, very proud of them.”
Battle Ground beat Union 3-1 in the other semifinal. As league champions, the Tigers were protected. It was not an elimination match for them. Had they lost that match, they would have played Thursday for the top seed.
Instead, the Tigers took care of business in one day. Knight said it is believed to be the Tigers’ first district title in volleyball since the 1980s.
“It’s been the goal since Day One,” Van Sickle said.
“It’s huge. It’s a very big deal,” Watkins added.
“It’s a really sweet victory for them,” Knight said, pointing to all of her players. “And for me, too.”
