All season, Mountain View’s volleyball team is living up new experiences.
From traveling across the state to make a name for itself at a 64-team tournament to capturing its first league title since the late 1980s, the Thunder’s dream season is a reality, players say.
And this week isn’t any different, preparing to play at the state tournament for only the third time since the school opened in 1981.
“It’s a totally new experience,” Thunder head coach Rachael Howington said. “We don’t know what we don’t know at this point.”
And that’s a good thing, the coach said.
The Thunder are led by a senior-heavy lineup that’s helped transform a program into a consummate winner and family-first attitude under Howington, now in her third year as head coach.
And that’s only aided the Thunder’s turnaround. Three years ago in Class 4A, Mountain View won four matches. Those days are long gone, and players like senior Gabby Harper praises the family-first attitude that’s led to success on the court.
“That helped us push to where we are today,” she said. “We have such a tight bond on our team right now.”
Mountain View (15-4) is state-bound for the first time since 1993. The Thunder did so by winning three straight loser-out matches at the final day of bi-districts Saturday at Bonney Lake to claim the final spot to state. It came after capturing a share of the 3A Greater St. Helens League regular-season title with Prairie, giving the Thunder their first since winning back-to-back in 1987 and ’88. On those teams was the school’s first hall of fame inductee, Diane Flick (now Flick-Williams), who earlier this season surpassed 400 career wins in her 19th year as Western Washington University’s head volleyball coach.
That led senior Grace Garmire to describe what started as a season of possibilities into true reality.
“We were floating,” said Garmire, one of seven seniors, of Saturday’s matches. “This isn’t a dream, this is real.”
This year, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association split the state volleyball tournaments over two weekends. The Class 4A and 3A tournaments are this weekend, Friday and Saturday at the Yakima Valley SunDome, where Prairie (3A) and Camas (4A) will join the Thunder in Yakima.
To accommodate the 4A and 3A tournaments, local bi-district tournaments also were held over consecutive weekends. That only benefitted Mountain View, players said. Extra rest and preparation only aided their run to winning three straight matches.
Last weekend’s final day of the 3A bi-district tournament in Bonney Lake was some of the best volleyball played all season. Mountain View swept Peninsula in their final match of the day after dispatching Spanaway Lake and Lakes in four sets. Those victories came after falling in the first set.
It isn’t the first time Mountain View’s faced stiff competition and fared well. In late September, Howington entered Mountain View into the Linda Sheridan Volleyball Classic, a prestigious tournament held annually in Spokane featuring a field of 64 teams spanning the Northwest.
The Thunder placed 11th with notable victories against higher-classification teams and other state-placing opponents.
That stiff competition against a number of quality opponents boosted a sense of belonging, senior Mollie Doyle said.
“Going into that,” she said, “we had the confidence to play with them. We believed we can compete with other teams. Now, it gives us more.”
Friday, the Thunder face Lakeside of Issaquah to open state at 1:30 p.m. Prairie and Mountain View are on the same side of the bracket, and could face off in the quarterfinals.
If so, that’ll be the fourth time the two teams face off this season; Prairie is 2-1 over Mountain View, including winning the bi-district seeding tiebreaker Oct. 31.
Winter sports practices started Monday statewide, but first priority for gym time and space went to volleyball at Mountain View. Forty-eight hours after an electric Saturday, the Thunder hope to repeat that feat starting Friday.
“All of us being able to experience that together was so cool,” said Harper. “We want to feel that excitement again.”
