The Othello High School Huskies took all three sets against Bridgeport in their first match Saturday during the Ephrata Volleyball Invite.

Ephrata High School hosted nine teams in the invitational, including those from Othello, Bridgeport, College Place, Cle Elum-Roslyn, Manson, Entiat, Nooksack Valley, Clarkston and Waterville. Almira-Coulee-Hartline was invited, but had to drop out at the last minute due to COVID-19 protocols at its school.

The invite was broken into three pools. The first pool included Ephrata, College Place, Cle Elum-Roslyn and Manson; the second, Entiat, Othello and Bridgeport; and the final, Nooksack Valley, Clarkston and Waterville.

Othello High School coach Steve Parris said he thought attending invites, such as the one in Ephrata, was good for his players’ confidence.

“We have some very good teams in our league. Actually, we have Ephrata here today and Ephrata is the top team in our league right now. But getting to play some of these smaller schools gives them some confidence, gives them a chance to try some things and for us to work on some of those things we’ve been trying to get done so that’s a good thing for us,” Parris said.

Othello took the court for its first match of the day just after 9 a.m. It was scheduled to play three sets against Bridgeport.

Sophomore Kalilynn Gomez, senior Kendra Freeman, junior Elizabeth Garza, senior Kenzie Simpson, junior Natale Martinez and sophomore Alize Alvarez were the starters for the Huskies’ first set.

Bridgeport started the game with the first serve. Freeman scored the first point of the game with a light spike that seemed to catch the opposing team by surprise. Bridgeport responded with a point by hitting the ball right inside the boundary line, but Othello took the lead pretty quickly, scoring three more points before Bridgeport could score again. The Huskies scored seven more points before a timeout was called, the score at 11 to two with Othello in the lead. Bridgeport scored a point right after the teams returned to the court but the Huskies responded with nine straight points. Bridgeport only broke the streak by gaining a point when a short serve by Othello didn’t make it over the net. The first set ended with the Huskies at 25 and Bridgeport at eight.

The second set was more of the same, with Othello barely letting Bridgeport gain two more points than the last set. Set two ended with a score of 25-11.

The third set was the closest game of the three and it seemed Bridgeport could have taken the game, but the Huskies weren’t going to let that happen and walked away victorious, 25-21.

“We did a lot of different things in the third set,” Parris said. “I wanted to get some of my kids that usually don’t get to serve, a chance to do that.”

Parris said due to the change up, some of the players got confused and he thought that affected the way they played in the last set.

“They served pretty well. Besides that, they had some challenges there but they’re good servers and we just didn’t pass as well in the third set and so they (Bridgeport) were able to stay close with us,” Parris said.

Othello has a 2-5 overall record and 0-3 record in the league. Its next match is set for Tuesday against Prosser.

“We’re just happy we’re getting to play a season and we’re doing our best to make certain we continue to play,” Parris said.