The opponents this week for the West Seattle Wildcats girls' volleyball team were two regular playoff contenders for the Metro League's Mountain division; Holy Names Academy on Wednesday, and the Eastside Catholic Crusaders on Friday.

Both matches followed a similar path ending with two shut out losses for the West Seattle girls, but there was a lot of good experience gained and great excitement for the spectators. The Mountain division has beaten up on the Sound division in inter-division play, and the Wildcats are not alone in defeat this week. Their one win this season ties them with Nathan Hale for the division lead going into this week.

Last Wednesday's game at Holy Names Academy, the West Seattle girls followed the same slow-start pattern that has put them in the hole to begin every match so far this year. Juniors, Spencer Nickell and Taylor Matalone got their first starts of the season and with Sr. co-captain Gail Considine, junior twins Julia and Lauren Freidenberg and sophomore Millie Osborne found themselves down 9-2 short minutes into the first game. From then on the Wildcats fought hard to stay even and closed to within four before running into a Holy Names point attack that solidified the first game loss 25-16.

This was the way things went the rest of the evening. The teams traded one and two points with hard-fought rallies, spectacular digs and West Seattle's strong play at the net including four blocks each on the night from co-captain Karly Sapp, Considine, and J. Freidenberg. Then they'd get caught with an extended serving run and give up 4 or 5 points before once again trading points evenly. Through the second game and into the third, they were never quite able to make run of their own until Sapp sustained a five point run tying the third game at 16. The score tied at 18, 19, and 20 before Holy Names gained an edge finally topping West Seattle 25-22 and taking the match three games to none. Holy Names has yet to lose even a game through their first four matches.

Senior Lauren Minckler joined the starters in Friday's game against Eastside Catholic in front of a sparse crowd due in part to the high school's football team's scheduled start at the same time at West Seattle stadium. The Lady Wildcats dispensed with their usual slow start even if the scoring pattern seemed familiar. Again, their net play was a strength, but they allowed more scoring runs than they made themselves. The Eastside Catholic Crusaders brought a tough serving squad into the West Seattle gym winning the first game 25-17 and the second, 25-20. Senior Gina Wittman in platoon with Osborne had a especially good third game to help The Wildcat girls put a scare into Eastside Catholic.

An 8-point service run by Considine including two aces ended with a four-point lead at 17-13. Through a full rotation around the court, the girls from the Eastside fought back for a lead of their own, but Considine's next service produced a 3 point run and left the game tied at 23. Once again the teams traded points until The Crusaders were able to sneak a ball over the net that was dug, but in the end not returned, and put the final score at 27-25 for game three taking the match three games to 75 percent of Eastside Catholic's serves were jump-serves and while West Seattle handled the majority of them, the Wildcats were often taken out of their offensive sets. J. Freidenberg had five blocks, Sapp had four blocks, and Wittman had three blocks. L. Freidenberg had 15 assists and a dig, J. Freidenberg and Sapp both had four digs and Considine had three digs along with her 10 kills on the evening.

The games this week - at Cleveland, Wednesday and Sealth Friday at West Seattle - begin play within the Sound division of the Metro league. West Seattle will play those two schools as well as Rainier Beach, Ingram, and Nathan Hale, twice each over the next 10 games to determine seeding for the Metro tournament in late October where their experience against Holy Names and Eastside Catholic will serve them well.