By Grant Clark
Whenever they have a match it’s always the same morning routine for the Montesano High School volleyball team – breakfast at the Bee Hive Restaurant.
It’s something of a tradition now with players always ordering the same meal.
“We’re a pretty close group of friends,” said senior right side hitter Kasie Kloempken. “We do a lot of activities like that. We also have team night every week where we just talk and catch up with each other.”
According to head coach Debbie Gibson, two of the top challenges facing the Bulldogs at the start of this season were communication and chemistry.
A month into the season and it appears all that time spend together off the court has paid off for the team on the court as not only are they are off to another undefeated regular season, but through their first five matches the Bulldogs haven’t even dropped a set yet, sweeping all five opponents in impressive fashion.
Although the Bulldogs, last year’s Evergreen 2A/1A League champions, entered this year as the likely favorite to once again capture the league crown, Gibson was quick to point out, even though the team had several returning faces, many of the players roles, positions and responsibilities have been altered since last year, significantly changing the overall makeup of the squad.
The big question was how quickly would the young team jell?
Pretty rapid by the looks of things.
Gibson knew she had some large voids to fill due to the graduation of three gifted seniors from last year’s squad, which went undefeated during regular season before bowing out in district tournament play.
Gone was Megan Choate, last year’s Evergreen 2A/1A League MVP, as well as first-team all-conference selection Myranda Floch and all-league honorable mention pick Hannah Jensen.
Large shoes to fill indeed.
Like last year, Gibson has gone with tri-captains, placing the responsibilities on Kloempken and fellow senior Cortney Miller, an outside hitter, and junior middle blocker Shayla Floch, the younger sister of Myranda Floch.
“Going with three captains seemed to work out for us last year, so we went with the same approach this season,” Gibson said. “All three had big leadership roles to fill coming into the season. All three are really different types of leaders. Each bring something a little different to the table, which I like. It’s worked out nicely. The entire team really looks up to them.”
After cruising through the regular season last year unscathed with a perfect 14-0 record, it appeared as if the Bulldogs were destined to make a return trip to the Class 1A state tournament for the first time since 2011.
However, things came to a sudden halt following consecutive losses at the district tournament, first losing to King’s Way Christian before dropping a season-ending match to Tenino, a team Montesano had bested twice during the regular season.
“It was just one of those off nights,” Gibson said about the team’s loss to Tenino. “Unfortunately for us we played our worst game when it counted the most. It wasn’t one thing or another. It was just a perfect storm of everything going wrong for us. Hopefully, it’s something we can build on and learn from.”
Both Kloempken and Miller believe plenty of positives have actually been pulled from last year’s setbacks.
“I think we took a lot out of it,” Kloempken said. “You can learn a lot of things from a loss. I still think we had a great season. It was a bad night though (losing at districts). I remember we were pretty nervous before the match. You just try to remember how that pressure felt the next time and learn to play with it.”
The Bulldogs haven’t been required to draw on that experience just yet as they’ve breezed through the opening part of their schedule.
Montesano opened the season on the road by making quick work of Forks (25-11, 25-19, 25-12) before cruising past Rochester (25-13, 25-22, 25-19) in its home opener on September 16.
After placing 11th at the SunDome Volleyball Tournament League – a 32-team pool play tournament featuring schools from every classification from around the state – on September 18, the Bulldogs picked up right where they left off, sweeping Elma, Tenino and Eatonville to place them tied atop the Evergreen 2A/1A League standings with fellow unbeaten Hoquiam.
In addition to the strong play from the three captains, junior middle blocker Jordan Spradlin, a first-team selection last year, has been dominant this season, while sophomore setter Hannah Hatcher has stepped right in to direct the Bulldogs offense.
Montesano closes out the first half of its regular season with a home match against the Grizzlies on October 6 in a battle that should go a long way in determining the league championship. The two squads meet again in Hoquiam on October 29 in the regular season finale for both schools.
