By Gerardo Bolong
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Mt. Rainier's hopes for an SPLS volleyball berth into bi-district went on life support after missing many opportunities to win in a 3-0 tournament loss to the No. 4 South seeded John Rogers (Puyallup) on Thurs., Oct. 30, at Mt. Rainier High School.

With their second loss in a row, survival into bi-district now depends on a winner-to-district, loser-out match at noon on Sat., Nov. 1, at MRHS.

"Except for the first set, we were in the process of being able to win until we got to the late stages," said Ram head coach Tom Wells. "It was like the Kentlake match. People were just trying to get hits too close instead of keeping the ball in play."

The first resembled a nightmare on 19th Ave. in Des Moines for the Rams as the Rams of Rogers turned a 4-3 deficit into fright night for Mt. Rainier beginning with a 4-0 run that later led to an even more scary 18-5 surge that included twelve consecutive points in the stretch to take a resounding 25-10 set victory.

The second set was up for grabs despite continued Mt. Rainier mistakes. Outside Ally Hardy and Megan Houston factored strongly into the action. Houston was finally unloading killing hits and nailed a kill to tie the set at 17-all. Communication lines went awry for the Rams at that point. Rogers rolled off six consecutive points for a 23-17 control and eventually took the set, 25-20.

Similar patterns of competition developed in the third set with the Rams of Des Moines grabbing a 12-11 edge. Mariya Manuel had some nice hits for MR. Again, a big breakdown occurred as Rogers owned the front line and other areas to fire away to a 19-12 control. Mt. Rainier mustered up only two more points the rest of the way in a Rogers 25-14 match ending triumph.

"The other team had more service errors, but we weren't getting our blockers," said coach Wells. "Passing to our hitters was tough, so we had no threat in the middle and no sets to our hitters. We can win on Saturday, if the girls believe in themselves."

Hitting statistics for the three sets backed up the Wells observations. Houston led with seven kills and Hardy had six.