The Orcas girls volleyball team lost their Sept. 30 match to La Conner in three games out of three at Orcas High School. Scores were 10/25, 12/25, and 13/25 in La Conner’s favor. Their volleyball team is the two-time Washington state championship winner.

Coach Greg Sasan commented, “The young people played defensively really well. La Conner is in a league all their own and they threw all kinds of serves and attacks at us that we sometimes could just not return. We had some mental breakdowns on serving and receiving as well, and that’s definitely an area that we are continuing to work on. La Conner was super aggressive at the net. Our team got some excellent returns and plays at the net, so we came away from that one learning a few things. It’s important to go down fighting, if you’re going to go down in the first place. We did that.”

The Orcas volleyball team played again Oct. 2 against Mt. Vernon Christian at Mt. Vernon’s new gymnasium. Orcas won three games out of three to take the match that day. The scores were 25/21, 25/8, and 27/25 Orcas.

Four Vikings, April Hofmann, Mackie Taylor, Makenna Thomas and Sydney Harris were all 100 percent on their serves for the match. Coach Sasan said, “I knew if they started hitting their serves and connecting with their passes that they would get in the groove and play their best. Andrea Garcia, for example, had 10 aces in our second match. She’s been working hard on her serving and it paid off.”

During the first game the impetus went back and forth between the two teams, but Orcas dominated on the scoreboard in the end.

“But then,” noted Sasan, “Their attention began to wander. They … had to work hard to stay focused inside the game.”

And stay focused they did. During the third game, Mt. Vernon led 20/17, and the Orcas team talked amongst themselves and got their heads back into the game even while Mt. Vernon threatened time and time again.

Orcas Viking leading attackers were Lanie Padbury with 10 kills at the net. April Hofmann had four attacks at the net and Thomas had three attacks.

The Orcas volleyball team played Shoreline Christian at Orcas on Tuesday Oct. 7. On Thursday, Oct. 9, they play at Concrete. These are both league matches for the Orcas Vikings.