Last Friday Night, the West Seattle High School women's volleyball team recognized its senior players at the last home match of the regular season.

Seniors Cassandra Sailiai and Gail Considine each played three years on the team and Lauren Minckler, Gina Wittman, and Karly Sapp each have four years in the Wildcat volleyball program. Along with coach's assistant, Kelsy Mowrer, and head coach Gayle Mowrer they were presented to the crowd and each received candy, flowers and best wishes.

Wednesday's match was at Chief Sealth High School. Neither team seemed able to get into a rhythm and they played as if they were trying to wait for the other team to make a mistake rather than make points for themselves. West Seattle made fewer mistakes on the night. There were few highlights: An early service run by Spenser Nickell and a big finishing serve from Wittman in game one (Win, 25-19), a dominating block by Considine to finish game two (Win, 25-17) and in game three, Sealth made a comeback to tie the game at 18 after being down 15-7. Then the teams traded points until once again behind the serve of Wittman, the Wildcats pulled out a victory (Win, 26-24) and a shut-out match win. Considine had 6 kills, Lauren Freidenberg had 13 assists and 3 aces, Minckler had 3 aces, Sailiai had 5 kills, Sapp had 3 blocks and Wittman had 3 aces.

Friday, the West Seattle girls welcomed Rainier Beach to the gym. After the Senior Night festivities the Wildcats got down to business against an improved Viking team. Unlike Wednesday, most points were hotly contested and Rainier Beach returned serve very well allowing only 3 aces all night. Game one featured just the seniors along with setter, Freidenberg. The tenth point of the match was one of those long rallies that gets the crowd on their feet, cheering every hit. It was great to have members of the Cheer squad lead yells during time-outs and between games. Even the Wildcat mascot made an appearance.

Minckler made the most of her start with consistent serving, extending an early lead to 8-4. Sapp was devastating at the net blocking and playing dink shots and kills that seemed to find the floor through flailing Viking arms. Later, Sailiai served a run of 5 points leading to a 17-8 margin. The teams traded points and despite a Viking run at the end, West Seattle won game one, 25-16. Beach got off to a quick 3 point start in game two, but once again, Minckler put her serves in play and the team was able to win 10 points in a row. Kialeah Baldwin played solid defense and had a 5 point serving run of her own. The Vikings were unable to put a scoring run together the rest of the game and West Seattle took game two, 25-14.

The third game of the match was a much tighter affair. The score was never more than the finishing margin and both teams played every point tough erecting sturdy blocking zones. Kills became less frequent and those hits that got through the block were dug out including one point where Considine dug the ball three separate times. Wittman put up a block and then slammed home the final blow to win game 3, 25-19. Sapp had 6 kills and 9 blocks and Considine had 5 blocks. Friedenberg had 3 blocks, 13 assists and 2 aces while Wittman had the best match of her year scoring 2 kills, 5 blocks, an ace, and an assist.

Going into the final week of the season, Nathan Hale is unbeaten on the year likely putting the division lead out of reach. West Seattle and Ingraham will fight for second place and an automatic bid to the District Tournament. To keep it from going to tie-breakers, West Seattle will have to beat the Rams at Ingraham on Wednesday, then go to Nathan Hale Friday and stop their winning streak. Without the win at Nathan Hale it will come down to number of games won and scores, etc. Ingraham beat West Seattle 3 games to 2 in their first meeting.