SNOHOMISH — There is plenty of volleyball left to be played this season, but Thursday night, the Snohomish Panthers seized control of first place in the Wesco North with a 3-1 victory over Monroe.
“The season is still young,” Snohomish head coach Alex Tarin said. “We are only 4-0 with six games to go. As long as we keep improving ourselves, improving our setting, improving our hitting, improving our passing, I think we will be fine.”
The Panthers (4-0 league, 6-2 overall) started strong and finished strong, winning by set scores of 25-11, 25-18, 24-26 and 25-22.
The Bearcats came alive in the third set and seemed poised to force a fourth leading 24-17, but a furious rally by Snohomish tied the set at 24. Monroe composed itself and scored two straight to win the set.
As frustrated as the Panthers could have been in losing the third set after such a comeback, Tarin viewed it differently.
“Actually I was excited because we I thought we had momentum going into the fourth set because we made a big run,” Tarin said.
If the Panthers had momentum, it didn’t show early in the set, Monroe jumped out to an early 4-0 lead. The Bearcats appeared well on their way to forcing a decisive fifth set when that momentum Tarin talked about finally kicked in. Snohomish scored 10 points in a row and 17 of the final 25 points of the match to earn the victory.
“Mental errors,” Tarin said. “I called a timeout and I told the girls ‘Stop your mental errors,’ I was pretty emotional in that timeout.”
Tarin’s emotion must have paid off as the Panthers went on a huge run. It was a kill by sophomore Lanesha Reagan that sealed the victory in the match and first place in Wesco North.
“It feels awesome,” Reagan said. “Monroe, last year, we lost at home. So I mean coming back in the fourth game was really great and I thought we played really well.
After dropping the first two matches of the year, both nonconference losses, Tarin says the Panthers have improved each time they hit the floor.
“Each practice we put in something different, another wrinkle to work on,” Tarin said. “We lost those two in preseason against two really good teams, but that is what preseason is about though, just trying to work out the kinks.”
Reagan led the Panthers with 21 kills. Cierra Short added 12 kills, Karissa Lamphere had 22 digs and Hannah Mantei had 28 assists.
Tarin has been working with Mantei lately to get her assist numbers up and it is paying off.
“Hannah has really stepped up her game,” Tarin said. “We started the season off and she was only having about 15 assists, 17 assists a game. Last week we gave her a goal of at least 25 and she hit it with 31 and 38. Tonight our goal was 30 for her, so 28 is real close. So she has really stepped up her play and I believe because of her improvement you can see it in the win column.”
Melina Seabrook had 14 kills and 12 digs, Kendal Munoz had nine kills and 12 assists, Taylor Latimore had 12 assists and Kaitlin Lebon had 10 digs for the Bearcats (3-1, 6-2).
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