2A volleyball: Ridgefield takes 3rd in state

LACEY — The Ridgefield Spudders took home third place in the 2015 2A state volleyball championships Saturday with a five-set win over 2A Greater St. Helens League rival Woodland.

“Third is amazing,” Spudders head coach Sabrina Dobbs. “I get goose bumps when I’m thinking about it. I didn’t think we were going to place third. Third in State is incredible. My girls are incredible. I’m really proud of them.”

The Spudders trailed 2-1 in the third place match before coming back to win.

Spudders senior Emily Persons — the lone senior on the squad — had the game-winning kill in the third-place match.

“We just wanted to place in the top-eight,” Persons said. “Placing third was crazy. I’m a senior and I’m the only senior on the team. So the last match was just great to end on a good note. It was awesome to have a win to end on and to have the game winning kill.”

The Spudders and Beavers took their places in Marcus Pavillion when the semifinals began at the campus of Saint Martin’s University on opposite ends of the gym. Eventually, the Spudders and Beavers met, just not in the way both teams had wanted.

On court 1, the Spudders took on the Bulldogs from Ellensburg. The Spudders were tied 10-10 in the fourth set, but reeled off a spectacular 15-5 run to send the game into a fifth set.

According to Persons, they wouldn’t have forced the game into a fifth set were it not for some inspiring words from Dobbs.

“That game was frustrating and everybody had bad attitudes like ‘oh my gosh, we’re going to lose,’ ” Persons remembered. “And then coach came and said, ‘you’re not done, you’re going to win this.’ We went into that last game with so much energy. And then we had 10 points in a row and it was crazy, what’s going on. It felt so good.”

Unfortunately for the Spudders, they made too much of a habit of needing to come from behind in the semifinal.

The Spudders came back from down 14-10 in the fifth set to get the game to 14-13, but Ellensburg ended their state title dreams on the next rally.

Opposite the Spudders were the Beavers taking on the Burlington-Edison Tigers.

After winning an epic first set 27-25, they lost the next three sets 25-16, 25-17, 25-11.

Ridgefield won the first set of the third-place match, but it wasn’t difficult to see that they — and the Beavers — were drained from the semifinals that ended less than 20 minutes before.

“It was a tough loss,” Dobbs said. “15-13 in a fifth game, it was amazing for my girls to come back. Coming into this one, all of our energy was just wiped out. It was hard to come and play against Woodland.”

After dropping the two middle sets to the Beavers, it looked like Woodland would turn a bad afternoon into a worse one for Ridgefield.

But much like they did in the fourth set of the semifinals, the Spudders were able to change their fate, this time for good.

“When we lost those two matches in the last game, I said ‘I’m not ending senior year, I’ve played volleyball for seven years, I’m not going to be done on this note,’ ” Persons said. “When we won it was so much better.”

2A STATE SEMIFINALS

ELLENSBURG 3, RIDGEFIELD 2

16-25, 25-19, 22-25, 25-15, 15-13

Ridgefield

Highlights: Madi Harter 17 kills, 9 digs; Sarena Bartley 20 kills, 10 digs; Bella Gama 47 assists, 7 digs, 2 kills; Maddy Campbell 17 digs, 1 kill; Hailee Taylor 6 blocks, 3 kills.

BURLINGTON-EDISON 3, WOODLAND 1

27-25, 16-25, 17-26, 11-25

Woodland

Highlights: Taylor Foster 6 kills, 7 blocks; Kayla Fredricks 16 digs, 4 kills, 3 blocks, 2 aces; Rikki Hadler 13 digs, 5 kills; Elle Nesbitt 12 digs, 1 kill, Kenya Byrnes 4 kills, 3 blocks

2A STATE THIRD-PLACE MATCH

RIDGEFIELD 3, WOODLAND 2

25-15, 19-25, 9-25, 25-17, 15-6

Ridgefield

Highlights: Madi Harter 14 kills, 10 digs, 5 blocks; Sarena Bartley 17 kills, 11 digs, 3 blocks;  Bella Gama 43 assists, 7 digs; Maddy Campbell 23 digs; Hailee Taylor 5 blocks, 4 kills; Anika Nicoll 8 blocks.

Woodland

Highlights: Kayla Fredricks 12 kills, 6 digs; Kenya Byrnes 10 kills, 3 blocks; Elle Nesbitt 46 assists, 5 digs, 2 kills; Taylor Foster 5 kills, 2 blocks.