OTHELLO – The Othello Huskies volleyball team (8-9) won 3-0 over Toppenish in the first round of the Central Washington Athletic Conference District 5 tournament Wednesday evening. This win moves the team to the next round of district play on Saturday. 

“I feel like we were really good,” said Huskies senior Abbie Douglas. “Most of the season we’ve been only playing hard for two and then the third one we get a little tired. Today we played consistent, and won three.” 

The match started out close as both teams consistently scored back and forth on serves. Othello managed to stay ahead throughout and came out on top with a 25-17 victory. 

The Huskies kept up their pace into the second set where they came up with a quick lead over Toppenish. The Huskies maintained the lead once, only this time by a larger margin and closed out the set 25-15. 

In the third set, Toppenish was first to score but the Huskies quickly responded and put up a sizable lead over their opponent. Toppenish was able to shorten the gap between the scores, but ultimately, the Huskies would remain dominant on the court and continue their postseason run. 

“I feel like we really want to keep going and we don’t want the season over,” said Douglas. “We’ve been practicing a lot and we’ve all put in the work and the time.” 

Douglas said she came into the set a little nervous since she didn’t want her senior season to end yet, but overall, she was ready to win the match. 

Huskies senior Whitlee Hollenbeck said the team put a lot of focus on individual things that each player needed to work on during practice, which helped them prepare for Wednesday’s matchup. She said this was on display during the game as they did a great job receiving the ball. 

“It was the most complete match that we played all season and it’s nice to see it at this point that what they’re working on is coming together,” said Huskies head coach Steve Parris. “They were able to stay with the game plan of what we wanted to do against Toppenish, so that was really fun to watch.” 

He said coming into their game against Toppenish, the Huskies had been putting work into their right-side defense. Toppenish had punished the Huskies with attacks on the right side during their last encounter this season, so he said it was important that they spent time on that to prepare for this matchup. 

This game plan worked great as the Huskies shut down the right-side attacks and held their opponent to around two kills on that side of the court, said Parris. 

Seniors Douglas, Hollenbeck and Shaylee Freeman played major roles in the victory over Toppenish, said Parris. All three had a strong presence on the court, making multiple kills and key saves for the Huskies. 

“They just came out to play and they’re awesome people and awesome players and they just had a great night tonight,” he said. 

The Huskies also spent some of the game working in some new players onto the court. He said these players are going to have key roles on the team next season so he wants them to get some postseason play and have them accustomed to the next level. 

Parris said overall, the big takeaway for the Huskies after Wednesday’s game is that they are showing themselves what is possible. 

“I think tonight they said, ‘Okay, we know we can play with this team, we know we can beat them, but we’ve been beaten by them. We just want to go out there and play our game, have fun and see what happens,’” he said.  

Going into Saturday’s matchup, the Huskies players said the team is going to work on making callouts on the court to ensure that each player knows who is getting the ball and on different aspects of the game where they might still need to be stronger. 

“Just practicing different things and see how the other team is and what we need to do against them,” said Hollenbeck. 

The most important thing for the Huskies to do in preparation for Saturday’s matchup is to work on their consistency, specifically in serving, said Parris.  

“I don’t think that we served a high enough percentage to compete with some of the top CWAC teams and so we will want to get that up there again,” he said. 

The Huskies' next game will be on the road this Saturday where they will play against East Valley at Selah High School at 4 p.m. 

BOX SCORE:  

OTHL: 25-25-25: 3
TOPP: 17-15-13: 0 

    Huskies senior Abbie Douglas prepares to receive the ball during the game against Toppenish. Douglas said she was nervous coming into this game, but knew this was a must win for the Huskies to continue their postseason push.
  

    Whitlee Hollenbeck, a senior for the Huskies, gets ready to serve the ball to Toppenish during the first round of the district tournament. Hollenbeck said the team worked put a focus on the individual players during the last few practices which is what led to their success.
  

    Othello's Alexa Peterson slams the ball onto Toppenish’s side of the net for a point during the first round of the district tournament.
  

    Huskies sophomore Meila Zuidema sets the ball up for one of her teammates to go for the kill against Toppenish during Wednesday’s matchup.
  

    Addie Roylance, a junior for the Huskies, gets ready to serve the ball.