YAKIMA — Since the Tumwater Thunderbirds swept their way to a 2A state championship in 2016, the state quarterfinals have not been kind to them.
Tumwater lost in four sets to Ellensburg in 2019 before two straight losses via sweep in each of the last two postseasons.
On Friday at the Yakima Valley SunDome, some bad omens prior to the T-Birds’ quarterfinal match against Sehome only seemed to play to the idea of a quarterfinal curse for Tumwater. The T-Birds, scheduled to start at 8 p.m. didn’t even take the court for warm-ups until 9:05 p.m. due to games on Court 4 running long, and the first serve wasn’t delivered until 9:31 p.m.
Still, both Tumwater and Sehome were dealt the same hand, but only the Mariners were able to flush out the odd start.
Fifth-seeded Sehome throttled fourth-seeded Tumwater in four sets, sending the T-Birds to their fourth straight loss in the quarterfinal round. Tumwater earned a come-from-behind win in the first set, only to struggle in the final three. The T-Birds never led after the opening set.
“We just struggled with starting strong. We were clawing the whole game trying to stay in there, and it got a little bit out of our hands,” Tumwater head coach Kennedy Croft said.
After going the entirety of the first-round match against R.A. Long without needing a timeout, Croft quickly burned her first as Sehome tallied the first five points. Even the first couple of points for Tumwater were off of service errors and faults by Sehome. But the T-Birds impressively found a rhythm, taking their first lead at 18-17 behind kills from Paige Henderson and Chloe Henderson.
The front rows for each team got hands on every attack attempt, and the point would often come down to how the ball rolled after a block. Late in the first set, more balls bounced Tumwater’s way in a 25-23 win.
But Tumwater looked out of sorts in the second set. Some attacks sailed long while others smacked into the net, and the T-Birds struggled to return serves, ultimately resulting in a 25-14 loss in which they never led.
Sehome once again led wire to wire in the third set, although Tumwater showed more fight in the third period than the second. After trailing 8-4 early, the T-Birds tied it multiple times, but the Mariners pulled away and then held off a late Tumwater rally in a 25-21 verdict.
Tumwater came out flat in the fourth, falling behind 5-1 off of four attack errors. Tove Hugus got going from the outside and helped the T-Birds tie the game 6-6. Then, Sehome’s outside hitter Hayden Niewiadomski took control, repeatedly rifling spikes through the Tumwater defense to give the Mariners a 17-8 lead. She and Lilyauna Jude swatted countless attack attempts by the T-Birds at the net.
A late 10-3 run by Tumwater was answered by a final 5-1 finish for Sehome to secure the four-set win and a spot in the semifinals.
“We just had a hard time connecting on our offense. They were a really scrappy team, so we just needed to come back at them a little bit harder in transition,” Croft said. “We couldn’t find the floor on their side.”
Tumwater (17-4) still has a chance to earn its first state trophy since that 2016 title run. The T-Birds will face West Valley in the consolation bracket at 12:45 p.m. Saturday, and a win would guarantee either the fifth-place or the sixth-place trophy.
“We’re gonna regroup. We’re still gonna go out tomorrow and play Tumwater volleyball,” Croft said. “That loss doesn’t mean we can be complacent tomorrow. The girls are still after excellence, and so am I, and so is this program.”
