By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

As the Class 1A state tournament's lone "home team" — being close enough to sleep in their own beds — the Zillah Leopards had the benefit of being able to go into the gymnasium on Saturday morning.

Their OWN gymnasium.

Because coach Erin Aumavae wanted to show them something.

"Look," she said, pointing at the volleyball display in the school's array of banners showing the Leopards' state places in every team sport. "There's no fifth places up there. We have firsts, seconds, thirds, fourths ... no fifths. That's something to shoot for.

"Let's finish today together, and at the end of the day it'll be special."

Well, the Leopards didn't finish fifth, but they did come home with hardware — the eighth-place trophy — after routing Stevenson 25-17,
26-24, 25-17 and then falling in four games, 25-10, 20-25, 25-12, 25-16, in the fifth/eighth place match to Lynden Christian, which had a perennial 2A state placer until last spring's reclassification.

"It feels really good," junior outside hitter Joelle Patterson said after the trophy-clinching victory over Stevenson, during which she slammed seven kills and a pair of aces. "After our first game here (a first-round loss to Cascade Christian), we were all pretty down. But we went out to lunch, and we kept talking about all this and what we had to do. We never let down. We talked about everybody talking as a team, communicating out there."

And on, as Aumavae had said a day earlier, about "being quick."

"That was our focus today — to move our feet," Patterson said. "When we don't move our feet, things don't go our way."

Against fifth-ranked Lynden Christian, though, the Leopards simply couldn't find enough hitting lanes against the tall and talented Lyncs, who got 14 blocks from 6-foot-1 Melissa VandenHoek and five from 5-11 Brianne Ryan.

Zillah setter Felicia Gonzales called Lynden Christian the tallest team the Leopards had seen "the whole season. You don't know who to set to, and wherever you set it, there's a big blocker."

The Lyncs had been relegated to the consolation bracket with an opening-round defeat to Colfax, easily the toughest first-round matchup. "When we saw the draw, we knew one of us was going to have to play for fifth place," Lyncs coach Kim Grycel said. "I'm really proud of the girls, coming back the way they did." The Lyncs dropped only one game the rest of the tournament, that coming against Zillah.

Goldendale left Saturday without a trophy, but not without a fight — and that meant something to coach Jodi Bellamy.

"We played well. If we had held on in that first game, maybe things would have been different," Bellamy said after the Timberwolves were ousted 26-24, 25-21, 25-17 by Lynden Christian in a loser-out, winner-gets-a-trophy match. "I thought they hit the ball down more than we did. That's a very good team — they're big and they jump well.

"But we played well, and that's what we talked about. We won a match here, and the fact that we're even here is big. Our younger kids got the exposure here, got the feeling of playing here."

And they played well. Bellamy's sophomore daughter, Kylee, was one of five sophomores — along with Whitney Wing, Sydney Bloom, Nikki Williams and Hannah Swigart — playing key roles in the Timberwolves' lineup, which also included two juniors and a freshman. "As we look to next year," Jodi Bellamy said, "the horizon looks good."

It looks good, too, for Zillah, which will return eight players from a young team that clearly overachieved.

"No one expected us to go this far," said Gonzales, who had 22 assists in the fifth-place match. "We finished fourth at district — and none of the teams that played ahead of us at district are going home with a trophy."

Zillah-Stevenson leaders: Zillah — Joelle Patterson 7 kills, 13 digs, 2 aces, 1 block; Tefini Uasike 7 kills, 4 aces, 10 digs, 1 block; Melissa Ivy 6 kills; Felicia Gonzales 24 assists, 3 aces, 2 digs; Christina Slack 3 aces, 7 digs.

Lynden Christian-Goldendale leaders: Goldendale — Kylee Bellamy 7 kills, 5 assists, 13 digs, 11-11 serving; Whitney Wing 4 kills, 6 digs; Cara Southworth 12 digs, 10 perfect passes, 13-13 serving; Nikki Williams 14-15 serving, 9 digs; Sydney Bloom 6 assists, 2 kills.

Lynden Christian-Zillah leaders: Zillah — Felicia Gonzales 22 assists; Joelle Patterson 10 kills, 14 digs, 1 ace; Tefini Uasike 5 kills, 9 digs, 2 aces; Amy Moritz 2 aces, 13 digs; Christina Slack 13 digs, 1 ace; Rosebud Guthrie 2 blocks, 4 kills. LC — Brianne Ryan 9 kills, 12 assists, 5 blocks; Melissa VandenHoek 14 blocks; Tanya Schouten 8 kills; Karlie Reinsma 18 digs.