EPHRATA — Outside hitter Madelen Owens went up and blasted a left-handed kill on match point to punctuate the Ephrata Tigers 3-0 victory over Toppenish Thursday night.

The Tigers (4-2, 2-0 CWAC) stayed in the hunt with a decisive win over the Wildcats (2-5, 0-2) and could ill afford to lose ground. Their 25-9, 25-15, 25-18 was a business-like effort. Paige Davis led the team in kills with nine on the night. Madison Martin, a 5-foot-11 middle added six.

Denali Sheneman spread attack around, finishing with 31 assists and libero Kiana Miller had four digs.

“When we play teams like Ellensburg (6-0, 2-0), we tend to play a lot faster. So I think we did a pretty good job playing at a slower pace tonight,” Martin said. “We did a good job on the attack. Earlier in the year we were trying to do too much of other people’s jobs and not focusing on what we had to do. But we’re playing together and everybody is doing their job (from the pass to the set to the kill). ”

The Tigers service was sound and they blew through the first set 25-9, taking a 17-7 lead at one point and finishing strong against a team that sent several free balls across and tried to dink and dunk against the Ephrata middles, Martin (5-11) and Hannah Goodspeed (5-9).

To give Toppenish a little credit, the Wildcats built confidence with each set and actually led 18-15 and again at 21-18 in the third set.

“Our goal was to stay in control of the match and we were able to go in and execute it,” Tigers coach Britney MacLeod said. “We would get a free ball and have to go get it and get back up on our attack. I think we did staying with our game. Our serving and our blocking are our strengths. We call our service our bread and butter. If we serve well, we play well.”

They served well and they played well Thursday night and they stayed in the hunt in a league where Prosser (5-2, 1-1) and Quincy (5-2, 2-0) are right behind the frontrunner Ellensburg.

“Our block has improved so much this year that it makes our job really easy on the back row,” Miller said. “We try to get every ball back, no matter what. We’ve done a really good job getting the ball to our setter to go on the attack.”

Ephrata has a key matchup at Quincy on Saturday and hosts Othello on Tuesday.