ADNA — Carrie Ooms isn’t one to rile up her team with what the naysayers are gossiping about.
Positivity is the only attitude the Rainier head coach tries to bring to her team, especially ahead of a big game. But there was a lot of noise from outside the tiny south Thurston County town about the Mountaineers.
They said Rainier couldn’t make a deep run in the District 4 2B Tournament. They said Allyson Ooms didn’t deserve to win the C2BL MVP award. They said Rainier couldn’t get past Toutle Lake in the title match.
In that decisive district championship match against the Ducks Saturday night, the Mountaineers put up the same score against Toutle Lake as they did against their doubters.
3-0.
For the first time since 1998 — Carrie Ooms’ senior season at Rainier — the Mountaineers are district champions, and they’ll head to the state tournament for the third straight year.
“There are a lot of people that thought Toutle was going to win, and it’s amazing to show everybody that doubted us that, ‘Hey, we are here. We are here to show up, and we are here to win,’” Carrie Ooms said.
While the final score showed an emphatic victory for Rainier, each set came down to the wire. Both C2BL powers went punch for punch in the first set, with eight lead changes and 15 ties. The difference was the efficiency of Rainier’s serves, as the Mountaineers tallied nine service aces in the first set, including four straight at one point by senior Katelyn Eckroth. Allyson Ooms also tacked on seven kills in the frame, and she closed it out with a rifle of a serve right at Toutle Lake’s Lainey Dean, who watched as the ball fired right between her hands.
Toutle Lake came out firing on every cylinder possible to start the second game, forcing two early Rainier timeouts after a 12-2 start. The Mountaineers struggled to get the ball over the long arms of the Ducks’ front row, and miscommunication turned into points for Toutle Lake.
With their backs against the ball, the Mountaineers quickly responded with an 8-1 run, showing rapid improvement on defense and keeping the ball in play for lengthy amounts of time. It was then Rainier’s turn to find dominance at the net, as Anika Plowman and Lexi Beckman denied attacks by Lainey Dean and Kendal Dean.
The Mountaineers took their first lead of the second set at 23-22 off of Ooms’ 14th kill of the night. Her 15th and 16th both answered Toutle points to keep the game tied before an ace by Eckroth and a block by Plowman finished it off, silencing the previously deafening Toutle faithful.
“It took everyone. Everyone had to band together, use our energy and talk. We weren’t really talking at the beginning, and that was a really big part of it,” Eckroth said of the comeback. “Everyone flipped the switch and said, ‘We don’t want this to go to four. We want to end this now.’”
All of the energy and momentum swung in Rainier's direction to start the third set. Toutle Lake carried a small lead early until Rainier found its rhythm and took a lead it would not relinquish. In the final stretch, every Mountaineer outplayed their counterpart across the net. Plowman continued to deny access to Rainier’s half of the court, Ellie Pringle and Courtney Eckroth found holes in the defense for kills, and Katelyn Eckroth recorded the exclamation point with a dump kill to hand Toutle Lake just its second sweep loss of the season.
The first? Against Rainier on Sept. 25 in a non-league match.
In the end, Rainier’s doubters were hushed while the Mountaineers’ joy filled the Adna gym as they hoisted the trophy. While taking team photos at midcourt, they celebrated via a FaceTime call with assistant coach MiAna Muhammad, who couldn’t attend the match due to a personal matter.
The Mountaineers have earned trophies in back-to-back state trips, but this entry into the bracket feels different. Rainier lost in the district semifinals in each of the last two seasons and had to take the road less desired to clinch its state bids.
This time, the Mountaineers did it their way.
Perhaps no athlete reacted with more joy than Allyson Ooms, whose intense, year-round volleyball regimen flashed on the biggest stage. Outside of Rainier’s schedule of four practices a week, she also trains three days a week. In the offseason, she competes at the club level and recently took up beach volleyball to sharpen her skills.
“I practice seven days a week. I sometimes practice two times a day, and I lift weights. I’m constantly going, but at the end of the day, it pays off,” she said.
Rainier’s three seniors — Katelyn Eckroth, Plowman and Liberty Adair — also relished in the celebration. They knew no matter how Saturday’s title match ended that their prep careers would continue next week. But the district title and the outside chatter were enough motivation to give it their all as if it was their final hurrah.
“It’s so unreal. We’ve worked so hard for this. It’s amazing that we finally pushed through and quit getting in our heads so much,” Adair said. “It’s definitely been a goal all year.”
“To be able to earn that trophy and that title of district champions, I don’t think you can get any better than that,” Ooms added.
The standard is different for the Rainier volleyball program than the last time it won a district title. The Mountaineers had never been to state before their 1998 run but ran into tougher teams that they had never faced before and left without a trophy.
But entering their third straight tournament, Rainier believes it can make history and continue to prove doubters wrong in Yakima. More importantly, the Mountaineers are seeking to prove themselves right.
“The goal is obviously number one, but just to place and get a trophy is a goal,” Allyson Ooms said.
The 2B state bracket will be released on Sunday.
