ADNA — The Rainier Mountaineers found themselves in an all-too-familiar position in the District 4 2B semifinals against Onalaska Wednesday night — trailing in the semifinals to the reigning Central 2B League champion and staring down the long road to a state bid.
A state bid is a state bid, but the veteran-heavy Mountaineers have had enough of the long road to get there.
In each of the last two years, Rainier got swept by Adna in the district title game before winning later in the tournament to punch its ticket to Yakima. On Wednesday, the Mountaineers trailed the Loggers two sets to one before coming from behind and cruising in the final two frames to clinch a trip to the district championship match and their third straight state bid.
“It’s amazing. It shows how hard we worked and how far the girls have come to be able to take the game tonight,” Rainier head coach Carrie Ooms said.
Rainier handed Onalaska its first loss since Sept. 30, breaking a 10-match winning streak. The Loggers didn’t quite look like themselves from the jump, as Allyson Ooms, Anika Plowman and Lexi Beckman repeatedly denied Emalie Jacoby’s attacks at the net in the first set. Rainier never trailed in the opening set and won 25-15.
Onalaska found life early in the second set with an 11-3 start, but Rainier, led by Ooms, caught a rhythm and played mistake-free volleyball. Rainier tied the set at 18, with sophomore Ellie Pringle ripping Onalaska’s defense to shreds with a pair of aces and a kill. The Loggers kept their composure despite the blitz from Rainier and used a 7-3 run, fueled by Jacoby, to knot the match.
The two C2BL powers showed how evenly matched they are in the third set, with neither team squeezing past a lead bigger than four until Onalaska pulled away late with a 9-1 run. Jacoby found her groove and began to punish the Mountaineers, and her energy put the Loggers one set win away from their first state trip in 10 years.
In between the third and fourth sets, Plowman took command of the Rainier huddle with the stakes intensifying.
“I was telling them that we needed to work as a team. I felt like we were playing individually,” Plowman said of her speech. “I said we needed to give it our all and push through to the finish.”
Onalaska appeared poised to close out Rainier in the fourth, jumping out to an 8-2 lead, including a 6-0 streak. The Mountaineers put the game into their league MVP’s hands to climb back into the game.
It seemed for a stretch that every time Ooms touched the ball, it wouldn’t be returned. Rainier’s 23-10 run after trailing 8-2 sent the match into the fifth set.
“I took the leadership role and put the ball away and helped my teammates push forward,” Ooms said of her fourth-set dominance.
It was all Rainier in the fifth set, with Beckman and Ooms leading the way to a 15-5 set win. Carrie Ooms believes it’s the first time Rainier has advanced to a district title game since she was a senior in high school on the 1998 Mountaineers team that won the program's first district title.
“It would be amazing to bring home a district title. Basketball has always been our big program, and it’s great that volleyball is scooting its way in,” she said. “Tonight, we had that flow, that easy movement rather than the forced movement. Everybody communicates in their own ways, and they really brought it.”
Allyson Ooms recorded 19 kills, 22 digs and three aces in the victory, while Beckman had a stellar night with 13 kills and five blocks. Plowman put up seven kills, six blocks and eight digs. Katelyn Eckroth dished out 22 assists and added seven digs and three aces.
Jacoby led Onalaska with 26 kills, 22 digs and three aces, while Braelyn Babb dished out 27 assists and Renzy Marshall tacked on six kills and four aces.
Rainier will face Toutle Lake in the district title game on Saturday at Adna High School. Meanwhile, Onalaska’s state hopes are still alive, but the Loggers must defeat Raymond-South Bend on Saturday to do so.
“We made it hard. They didn’t do anything; we did. We just stopped playing our game,” Onalaska head coach Susan Gordon. “We had them in game four. As a team, we did not come ready to play. We just have to go back and remember we’re playing for each other and we’re playing for the opportunity to go to the state tournament.”
Rainier has earned trophies at state in back-to-back trips out east, and the Mountaineers are confident that this year’s hardware will shine a little brighter.
“I think this is our year, and we’ve worked hard to be in this spot we’re in,” Allyson Ooms said.
