The West Seattle High School Women's Volleyball squad finished the regular season this week with a 6-4 record in the Sound division of the 3A Metro League.

Last Wednesday's match at the Ingraham Rams was for a chance at second place in the division and an automatic bid into the District playoff tournament. The Wildcats came out hot winning the first point and behind good serves by Gail Considine led 4-2 early.

The teams traded points until Ingraham put together a 7 point service run to lead 12-7. The Wildcats played them even before allowing the Rams to score the last 9 of 12 points to take the first game 25-11.

Ingraham was beatable in the second game but the teams played even through a series of serving errors until finally, beginning at 7-7, the Rams scored 5 in a row. From that point West Seattle gave up 2 points for every three despite strong defense and hard setting work by Lauren Freidenberg losing game two, 25-15.

Ingraham came out ahead in the third game, but West Seattle made them pay for every point digging and setting up their returns. For a six serve stretch the ball crossed the net more than three times each point, but Ingraham won 5 of them. Considine once again put together a service run of three to close the margin to 6-8, but that was as close as they got dropping game three, 25-16. West Seattle failed to score an ace on the evening and in fact scored just 11 points on their serve all night. Freidenberg put up 14 assists and 5 digs. Co-Captain Karly Sapp had 6 kills and 4 blocks, while Co-captain Considine had 5 kills and 5 digs. Kaileah Baldwin started and scored 2 kills, 3 blocks and 4 digs. Cassandra Sailiai scored 2 kills and 5 digs in limited time.

With the Metro tournament seeding decided, last Friday night's match at Nathan Hale was all about stopping the streak. The Raiders had run through the division undefeated, but the Wildcats had won one game in their first meeting and were there to at least put a bump in the road to 10-0. It didn't look good to begin with as the Raiders began game one with a 5 point lead and those that traveled to see the Wildcats were worried it was going to be a blow-out.

Unlike Wednesday's game though, the servers were able to score points. First the captains scored, and then Wittman ran 4 in a row to catch and tie at 9 points each. Lauren Minckler continued the scoring building the West Seattle lead to 13-10 despite a Nathan Hale time-out. The teams traded points through 17-17 when Hale made a run to tie it.

Once again Wittman came through serving to a 20-17 lead. Freidenberg had another excellent match including a huge block on the Raider's top hitter during the Witt service run. Nathan Hale was not undefeated without reason. They put together a run of their own scoring through a 20-20 tie to take a 22-20 lead.

West Seattle played it tough and the teams traded points to a 22 point tie before the Raiders were able to put together the final points to win game one 25-22.

Game two was more of the same, but West Seattle dispensed with the 5 point head start. Neither team led by more than 2 points through a 7-9 Wildcat deficit. Minckler took over the serve at 8-11 and the team promptly ran off 5 strait points until giving 2 to end up in a 13-13 tie. Once again the teams played even trading one or two points with West Seattle trailing most of the way to the final score of 25-21.

Game three got away early and West Seattle had trouble keeping it close. At 4-10 coach Mowrer made substitutions and got her bench players some much needed experience. The final was 25-12 giving Nathan Hale their undefeated record, but also providing the Wildcats with some confidence of their own going into the playoffs. Freidenberg had 19 assists on the evening with 2 big blocks. Considine put up 9 kills and had 4 blocks and 4 digs. Sapp scored 6 kills, 4 bocks and 4 digs. Baldwin had 2 kills, 5 blocks and 4 digs. Sailiai slammed three kills home before going down with an injury in the first game. We wish her a speedy return.

West Seattle will begin the Metro tournament, tomorrow on Bainbridge Island against the winner of Tuesday's preliminary match between Seattle Prep and Sealth. The winner goes on to play Bainbridge Island that night and the loser will play for the last District spot in a consolation game on Saturday in the West Seattle gym.

West Seattle hosts Saturday's part of the Metro tournament and whether they first play at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., or 4 p.m., it should be a close game and exciting to watch. The Metro championship game is scheduled for 6 p.m.