By Jeremy Martin

A nice turnout, including a large student contingent supporting both schools made for a lively Wednesday night as Chief Sealth played host to neighborhood rival West Seattle High in an early season volleyball tilt, that saw the Seahawks prevail in three straight games.

For the Seahawks it began with an early game 1 run and ended with emphasis in the 3rd when Jill Kumasaka dug a Wildcat spike off the floor, flipping it back over the net for for the match's deciding point.
In between saw an intense and hard fought outing, and despite Sealth playing from ahead for the majority of the evening, no team ever really seemed to have control of the momentum.
“We figured it was going to be a battle, it's always a battle with West Seattle,” Chief Sealth head coach Lorna Considine said.

The first game of the night was marked by a series of beautiful rallys, the best of which lasting nearly a minute was finalized by a Lydia Giomi kill that would give West Seattle a 2-0 lead.

The edge however wouldn't hold as Sealth responded immediately going on a 7-0 run to grab a commanding advantage, forcing wildcat coach Joe Baleto to take a timeout in order to regroup his girls.

“I said, its a new game, we've got three games to win and you've got to play one point at a time. That's what they were trying to do and they almost snuck one out,” Baleto said.

The pep talks only did so much, as the Wildcats dropped the first two games and appeared to be heading towards a quick out thanks in no small part to the communication and crisp execution of the Seahawks.
“It's very important, it got to the point where communication and transitioning was a major weakness the year before, but now they're blending, they're flowing a lot better as a team,” Considine said.

The Wildcats too started to play as a complete unit but it took until the third game for the young team to mount a defense against the more experienced Seahawks.

West Seattle jumped out to an early game 3 lead, holding off Sealth through 18 points.
The next several points would remain back and fourth with no team taking more than a one point lead until Kumasaka's game winning score.

“We're a young team, in a rebuilding season with a lot of players in different roles right now,” Baleto said. “I think they were a little nervous to play a match against their cross town rivals, It's always tough when you're in that third game, in the end we made some mistakes and they capitalized on them.”

Gabby Sarver lead the Wildcats with 7 kills, three aces, 14 digs and three blocks, Aspen Knowles picked up 8 kills, three aces and 11 digs, Sophie Johnson racked up three aces and 12 assists, Lexi Ione finished with 7 kills and 5 blocks while Lydia Giomi led the squad with 10 blocks.

For the Seahawks Julia Stewart had 8 aces and 6 blocks, Kati Staudt had 6 kills and 3 blocks, Jacqueline Andrade had 3 aces and 10 assists, Olivia Boyd had 5 kills and 3 blocks and Sophie Boyd had 10 digs and 7 kills.