By Gerardo Bolong
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Second Annual Seattle Christian volleyball tournament in SeaTac provided the Foster High School (Tukwila) volleyball team a chance to retool while also smoothing out the kinks in a revamped starting line up in a 25-18 Pool A first round loss to Chimacum on Sat. morning, Oct. 4.
"This was the first day of our new lineup," said Foster head coach Brandi Travess. "We have a bigger presence in the front row and the rotation looks better. Once we smooth out the kinks we'll start winning."

Against the Cowboys, the Bulldogs stayed in range of victory throughout after leading 4-2. Back and forth, the teams exchanged volleying evenly on the Seattle Christian home courts.

Trailing only 11-9, Foster ran into a rut in which Chimacum bounced off six consecutive points to gain the lead at 17-9 in part due to strong serving. The Bulldogs nearly unhorsed the Cowboys with a 6-1 scoring spurt based on good outside hitting and a block by Tavaesina Maiava to trail only 18-15 by using good net blocking mixed with strong defense.

Foster stayed within two or three points until the score reached 20-18, but Chimacum rode hard for the final seven points by taking advantage of short or missed returns of serve to close out the proceedings at 25-18 before each team prepared for the second round of pool play.