NWMS Volleyball

The North Whidbey Middle School 7th & 8th grade volleyball teams had their first home match on Nov 18th against Anacortes.
The 7th grade team was first up. 7th grade volleyball is mostly about serving, with the team that gets the most serves to score usually wins. While there are some rallys, most points are scored on service aces or serve return errors. In fact, a player serving can only serve a maximum of 5 serves before the team is forced to rotate and use a different server. This is to keep one strong server from dominating the game, and allows a number of players to serve.
Starting the first game Tuesday on the 7th grade team were Kim Forster, Celine Gross, Tiffany Kepner, Courtney Godwin-Harrison, Cathleen Marsh and Charleen Marsh. Subbing in were Caterina Amsler, Bethany Bond, Zena-Maria Husler, and Alexandria Gordy.
The first game started out close, with neither team getting more than a 1 or 2 point advantage. At one point the game was 11-9 in favor of Anacortes, then the Seahawks put 2 strong servers on the line back-to-back, scoring 10 unanswered points. Anacortes wound up winning game one 25-10. For North Whidbey Forster scored one service ace and Charleen Marsh scored a pair of her own.
In game 2, the Cougars fell behind early, but got comfortable on the court and started scoring some points of their own. Husler, Kepner, and Amsler each scored a solo ace, while Charleen Marsh scored 4 in a row and Courtney Godwin-Harrison added a kill. The Cougs were ahead late in the game, 23-21, but fell to Anacortes again 21-25.
Game 3 finished with the same score as the second game – 25-21 in favor of Anacortes. In this game, it was close throughout, and 4 different NWMS players scored earned points. Gordy had an ace and knocked two free balls across the net for scores, Forster had a pair of aces, Husler scored a kill, and Cathleen Marsh had two kills.
Photos from the 7th grade match can be found by clicking HERE.

In 8th grade action, the starters for game 1 on Tuesday were Taylor Nienhuis, Brittany Rigby, Ciera Wiser, Cailin Cooley, Kaitlyn McClimans, and Micaiah Davis. Subbing in with lots of time on the court were Kassandra Rousselle, Adeline Guina, Dahnyelle Counts and Ashley Everett.
The level of play was much higher than in the 7th grade match, and there were many more earned points on both sides of the net. Cooley had an ace, a kill, and an overpass landed on the Anacortes court for a point, while McClimans had a kill and a service ace. Others scoring earned points in game 1 were Wiser and either Nienhuis or Rigby – they were both at the net for a tap. Even though the girls played hard, and even held an 8-7 lead a one point, they lost the first game 17-25.
Game 2 was all North Whidbey. The 8th graders built an early 9-2 lead, later expanding it to 18-5. Over the entire game, the Cougars tallied a total of 9 service aces, 3 each from Everett, Nienhuis and Cooley. Rousselle added a kill and Davis had two kills on the way to the 25-18 game 2 win.
Game 3 was another close one. The game started with a service ace by Nienhuis, then went back and forth. Counts had an ace in the middle of the game to put NWMS in the lead 13-12, but Anacortes had some strong servers and were able to pull out a 25-19 game 3 win for the 2-1 match victory.
8th grade photos have been posted HERE.