Banquet November 13th

The Kentlake Volleyball Banquet will be next Wednesday, November 13th in the Commons at Kentlake HS at 6:30 pm.

Varsity players: Salads and Bread

 JV Players: Pasta/Lasagna dishes

C Team Player: Drinks and desserts

Falcons Take 2nd at Mount Baker Invitational

In their final tune-up before SPSL the playoffs, the Kentlake Falcons fell to perennial small school powerhouse Brewster 25-19, 29-27 in the finals of the Mount Baker Invitational in Deming on Saturday.

After a slow start in game one of the first pool play match against Mount Baker, the Falcons rallied for a 2-1 victory over the hosts. They then overwhelmed Sultan and Riverside Christian. Against Sultan the Falcons had 20 aces, including a school record tying 10 from Victoria Boyko. Against Riverside Christian the script was almost the same, except it was Sean Taylor who had 9 aces in the first game.

In the semi-finals Kentlake outlasted a very tough Forest Ridge team that had previously only lost to 1A #1 Annie Wright.

The Falcons were without Setter Madoline Seumalo and Middle Blocker Taylor DiLeonardo, and Outside Hitter Lexi Lockhart played out of position to rest her sore hand.

The Bellingham Herald has a nice set of pictures of the tournament and several articles.

Senior Night

Tonight is Senior Night and a very important match against Auburn. Win and (barring a major upset of KM beating Kentwood) then we should secure the fifth and final spot for the SPSL League Playoffs. Auburn is 1-10 on the season with the one victory over Thomas Jefferson, so hopefully... Tonight we will honor Seniors Erin Ryan and Sean Taylor. Erin has been a two year starter at Libero while Sean is the first four-year full time starter (3 years as Middle Blocker and one as Outside Hitter) in school history (and only the second player at Kentlake to play Varsity all four years). Sean holds the school record for Assist Blocks in a match (8 last year against Kentwood) and probably aces in a single game (7 against Lincoln, the record for a match is 10 held by Courtney Thompson, Hannah Merritt and Sean's sister, Kathy) but we don't track that one and Sean only played the one game in a rout of Lincoln.

SPSL and Bi-District 3/4 4A Volleyball Tournament Information

Five teams from the SPSL North will make the SPSL League Playoffs the weekend of November 2nd (details as to time and location have not been announced). They will face off against five teams from the SPSL South. Of those ten teams nine (yes, all but one) will continue to the Bi-District 3/4 4A Volleyball Tournament on November 9th and 10th. The Bi-District Tournament will have nine teams from the SPSL, four from Narrows League (The league with Bellarmine, Timberline, Olympia, etc) and three from the Greater St. Helens League (The league from the Vancouver, WA area with Prarie, Skyview, Camas, etc). The WCD playoffs will be November 9th and 10th at Kentwood HS. Seven teams will make state from WCD.

Varsity Coming Into Their Own

The conventional wisdom was that Kentlake would go 1-2 last week with losses to Curtis and Enumclaw and a victory over Thomas Jefferson. While that is what happened, it does not give the full picture.

The match against Enumclaw, a tough five set loss to one of the better teams in 3A, showed a lot of grit and determination from Kentlake. After losing a close game one and a sloppy game two, Kentlake came back to pound Enumclaw in game three and then come back from well down to force game five. At one point in game four Enumclaw had a 12-3 lead, but Kentlake traded points then had good serving runs from Lexi Lockhart and Victoria Boyko, aided by great front row play by Sean Taylor to get back in the game. Unfortunately Enumclaw was able to pull away late in game five and win 15-11.

Sean Taylor and Victoria Boyko had almost error free matches with Victoria getting 7 kills on only 1 error, while Sean had 14 kills and only 1 error for a stellar .565 average. Lexi Lockhart contributed 12 kills and Zoe Gaines had 9.

Now Kentlake goes up against Tahoma (home on Tuesday) and Kentridge (away on Thursday). Tahoma is 2-3 on the year with a victory over Kentridge but a bad loss to Bethel. Kentridge is 0-6 on the year but played Olympia very tight at the Kent Classic, getting blown out in game one but coming back to edge Olympia 33-31 (or close to that) with Olympia playing their starters in both games.

Volunteers Needed for Tahoma Match on Tuesday

We need parents to volunteer to assist during the home games this year. We need line judges, scorekeeper, concessions and libero tracker. Direct links to the sign up pages are below.

Varsity	Jr. Varsity	C Team
Tahoma Kent Meridan Auburn (Senior Night)	Tahoma Kent Meridian Auburn (Senior Night)	Tahoma Kent Meridian Auburn (Senior Night)

We have three home matches left and really need parents to step up. We don't want a repeat of last Friday where JV players had to call lines for the Varsity match and we certainly don't want Varsity players to ever have to work during the JV and "C" team games where they should be getting ready for their own match.

Problems?

If you have problems with the signup links, go to http://www.signupgenius.com/findasignup and search for lpierce "at" go.shoreline.edu. This will give you a list of the signups that Coach Pierce set up. You can then choose the one(s) you need to register for.

Match Day: Curtis

The Curtis Vikings come to Kentlake for the final non-conference matchup before SPSL play starts (there is one more non-conference match on Friday against Enumclaw). Curtis is 2-2 on the year, but the two losses have been to Auburn Riverside and Kentwood. The Vikings have a number of players that play club together and are led by OH Janell Sparks. As per normal JV and "C" are at 5:45pm and Varsity will follow somewhere around 7:15pm.

Kent Classic

The annual Kent Classic is this weekend at Kentlake and Kentwood High Schools. Kentlake will be in Pool G at Kentlake to start. The other teams in the pool are 2A Selah, a traditional power in 2A (they finished #3 the last two years), and Bothell (KingCo 4A) who is 0-4 on the season.

Where Kentlake plays in the second round and playoffs is determined by how they do in the first round of pool play. If they finish first or a "good" second they will play at Kentwood in the afternoon, alternately they will stay at Kentlake.

Jaguars Defeat Falcons

Kentlake gave Emerald Ridge (#2 in 4A) a good fight but ultimately lost 1-3 in a very sparsely attended afternoon affair at Kentlake. Much of the Emerald Ridge teams trains together year-round and it showed.

Emerald Ridge Comes Visiting

Kentlake will play Emerald Ridge HS today in the first home contest of the season. "C" team will play Mount Rainier since Emerald Ridge does not have a "C" team. Emerald Ridge is currently ranked #2 in the state and is 3-0 with victories over Kentridge, Auburn Riverside and Tahoma and a First Place finish at the Puget Sound Adidas Invitational at Auburn Mountainview HS last weekend. Six of their players play club ball together for Puget Sound VBC.

The game is early with Varsity playing at 3:30pm and JV and "C" following (officially at 4:45pm but probably more like 5:30pm or later).