The Women's Metro 3A High School Championship Volleyball tournament began last Thursday night.

The West Seattle Wildcats went to Bainbridge Island to once again face The Eastside Catholic Crusaders. It looked like the teams were evenly matched to begin the first game. Neither team won a point on their serve through a 4-4 tie when the Crusaders put together a run to take a 4-point lead. The teams traded more points until West Seattle scored 4 in a row behind the serving of Karly Sapp to tie it up again at 12 before giving up the serve at 12-13.

The next two points were long rallies with both teams setting up their offensive opportunities and digging out long balls, but Eastside Catholic came out with both points and then rattled off 4 more before the Wildcats could get the serve back. The teams finished out the game trading points to a finishing score of 25-18 in favor of Eastside Catholic.

In the second game after taking the serve over at 2-2, J. Freidenberg, in her first match back from injury, put together a run of 4 answered immediately by the Crusaders building to a 7-7 tie. The teams traded points with Eastside sometimes scoring two to the Wildcats 1 all the way to a 25-17 win. Gina Wittman started game three with 3 strait points, but Eastside Catholic responded with a run of 7 points before Gail Considine got the serve and scored 4 to tie at 8.

No team scored more than two in a row until the Crusaders scored the last 3 points of game three finishing with a 25-20 win, sweeping the match. They went on to play second seeded Bainbridge Island while the Wildcats ferried home relegated to the last-chance game Saturday. J. Freidenberg: 8 kills, 6 blocks, 3 digs, 2 aces. Lauren Freidenberg: 12 assists, 3 kills, 5 blocks. Karly Sapp: 7 kills, 5 blocks.

West Seattle hosted the Saturday portion of the Metro tournament meaning the Wildcats got to play at home for their last-chance game against the Holy Names Academy Cougars. The loser's season would be finished. After giving up the first point in game one the Wildcats began putting together the two and three point runs that had been missing through the season leading 13-7 before Holy Names finally came back at them with a 5 point service run and finally tying the game at 15.

Considine served 3 in a row and Holy Names then put together 5 to seesaw the lead back in their favor giving the serve to Sapp at 19-20. The next point was back and forth across the next 8 times before West Seattle took home the point to tie the game at 20. The game tied at 21, 22, 23, and 24. Wittman served the final point and appropriately the game ended with a big L. Freidenberg block for the 26-24 win.

Holy Names had a tough time getting through the West Seattle block all day while the Wildcat slams tended to fall. In game two West Seattle never gave up more than two points in a row through the end of the game. It finished with a monster kill by Considine through the Cougar block and West Seattle won game two 25-18. The Wildcats continued their momentum into game three scoring the first 5 points unanswered. There was no giving up for the academy however, and they fought back to tie the game at 10 and then served 4 points in a row forcing a West Seattle time-out. West Seattle won 2 with Wittman serving, got the serve back immediately and behind solid serving by Lauren Minckler ran off 4 more points to lead 22-13. Holy Names closed to 23-24, but West Seattle was up to the challenge and finished off game three sweeping the match with a 25-23 game three win.

L. Freidenberg deserves extra credit for mixing her sets using front, back, middle, even a shoot set and scoring at least two kills by shooting the ball into an open portion of the Holy Names court. She had 41 assists and scored 3 kills, 6 blocks and 5 digs. J. Friedenberg scored 15 kills, 5 digs and 10 blocks. Co-captain Considine had 12 kills, 5 blocks and 11 digs while co-captain Sapp scored 8 kills, 7 blocks and 3 digs. Minckler scored 5 kills, 2 blocks and 4 digs to go with an ace serve. Wittman also had an ace, 2 kills, 2 blocks and 2 digs.