The Silverdale Lady Seahawks had a great volleyball season a year ago when they finished as the D-II-A state runner-up.

They’re having another outstanding season that continued on Monday evening with a convincing win over Notre Dame for the D-II, District 2-A championship at the Silverdale Center.

These same two teams met at Notre Dame on Sept. 24 to determine who the top seed would be and Silverdale won in four sets.  The Lady Seahawks proved that first time was no fluke as they won in three sets in a match that wasn't nearly as close as the first time.  Scores were 25-16, 25-18 and 25-8.

Silverdale improves to 31-10 overall while Notre Dame falls to 19-14.  Both teams will be at home on Thursday to host the first round of the region tournament with Silverdale hosting the fourth-place team and Notre Dame the third.

Boyd Buchanan earned the third spot in Monday’s first match where they defeated a much-improved Collegedale squad in four sets, the Lady Bucs winning by scores of 25-21, 21-25, 25-20 and 25 13.  Both of those teams will be on the road Thursday.

Silverdale coach Geri Gearrin is usually pretty soft spoken following matches as she doesn’t just ramble on and on like some coaches.  That was the case again on Monday.

“I’m always pleased with the way they play, but I feel like we executed really well today and our setters made good choices,” she began.

“Every one of our players did their part as they all produced and it was fun to watch.  We knew that Notre Dame had a couple of really good hitters and we tried to concentrate on slowing them down, but I thought one of the biggest keys for us today was our serving.  We didn’t serve very well the first time we played, but were able to fix that.

“But we’ll come back ready to practice tomorrow as we get ready for Thursday,” she smiled.

Notre Dame coach Laurie McGinley was very careful about her post-match comments as she knows better than anyone that Monday was not one of her team’s better matches.

“I thought we made some adjustments between the first and second set that helped us play better, but that wasn’t the case in the third set as we just totally lost our energy and had trouble passing,” she said afterward.

“We have a really young team and have worked really hard to get to this point.  Our goal is to be playing in three weeks, but today’s match does not define our season as it’s been good to this point.  But we still have things to clean up and that’s what we’re going to work on before Thursday,” McGinley nodded.

Olivia Harness was one of those Silverdale players who had a great match from the service line.

She had five straight points, including three aces at the start of the match to help Silverdale break from a 3-3 tie to a more commanding 8-3 lead.  She did the same thing later in the set as those five points stretched an 18-10 lead to 23-10.

Notre Dame then rallied with a kill from Helen Wagnon, an ace from Kaylee Pendergrass, another ace from Scout Mullin and two kills from Cori Hill to score six straight points, but that wasn’t nearly enough as a kill from Lexi Stembridge ended the first set to give Silverdale the early lead.

A kill from Addi Smith gave Notre Dame its only lead in the second set at 2-1 before Silverdale’s Kayla Meyer got a block to tie it and then two straight aces for a 4-2 lead.  A kill from Addie Kitchings made it 4-3, but Silverdale started stretching that lead.

Harness had four straight service points to extend a 14-12 lead to 18-12.  It didn’t get much closer as a block from Meyer gave the Lady Seahawks a 2-0 lead and a ton of confidence.

An ace from Jocelyn Stephenson and two kills from Sophie Easterday put Silverdale ahead 3-0 in the third set.  The difference was 7-2 when Notre Dame called its first timeout.

A block from Stephenson put Silverdale’s lead at 12-5 and that’s when Mackenzie Lambert stepped to the service line and basically took over, knocking down a dozen straight points that included five aces.

A kill from Hill stopped the momentum for a minute and Smith had a kill to make it 24-7, but a kill from Bella Alatassi clinched the match as players from Silverdale’s bench raced on the court to celebrate.

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)