YAKIMA — Ask Carrie Ooms after a Rainier loss what went wrong, and she will mention a few common culpabilities.
Jitters. Poor communication. Lack of mental focus.
This season, the Mountaineers have been able to buck those trends before they became habits as they had in years prior. But under the bright lights of the Yakima Valley SunDome, old habits die hard.
The top-seeded Mountaineers were victims of their own minds in the 2B State Tournament quarterfinals against eighth-seeded Northwest Christian (Colbert) Wednesday night. Rainier could not finish off the feisty Crusaders despite holding a 2-1 set advantage and lost in a five-set thriller.
“I think a few of the girls were a little nervous. They let their nerves get the best of them. They started playing a little timid, rather than playing aggressive,” Ooms said.
The writing seemed to be on the wall for Rainier to start the day, as the Mountaineers struggled at times putting away 16th-seeded Orcas Island in the first round. Ooms said after that game, a 3-1 Rainier win, that the Mountaineers were lucky to shrug off their state jitters in the first round and expected a more aggressive mindset going into the quarterfinals.
Against the Crusaders, those nerves weren’t an immediate problem for the Mountaineers, who started the contest with two of the longest and most grueling sets of their season. Rainier struggled to get the ball over the net early in the first set but battled to win 28-26.
A Rainier lead that was once as large as six whittled away in the second set, and Northwest Christian put away the Mountaineers 26–24.
In the third set, the Mountaineers got flashbacks to the second period of the 2B District 4 title match against Toutle Lake, where the Ducks took an early 10-point lead before Rainier rallied to win en route to a sweep. Northwest Christian blitzed Rainier 18-8, and, once again, the Mountaineers showed their fight with a 10-1 run to bring the margin down to one point.
Rainier finished the comeback with another 7-1 run to win the third set 25-23. Suddenly, all of the momentum was comfortably on the Mountaineers’ side.
“They played amazing. They really battled from the beginning,” Ooms said of the third-set rally. “There wasn’t a doubt in my mind, especially when we came back from Toutle in the district championship, that they could still come back and take the set, and they did.”
But they dug themselves another hole in the fourth set, and this time, the Mountaineers couldn’t climb out of it, trailing wire to wire in a 25-18 loss to send the match to a decisive fifth set. Northwest Christian took advantage of weak spots in the middle of the defense, along with Rainier misfires on attacks, to force an Ooms timeout with an 8-3 lead in the fifth.
Lexi Beckman and Allyson Ooms then asserted their authority, helping the Mountaineers tie the game at 12, with the tying point coming on an Ooms kill that just barely landed inside the line on the left side of the court. Anika Plowman gave Rainier its first lead of the set off a service ace, but with only two points left to clinch a second trip to the semifinals in three years, the Mountaineers left those points stranded.
Northwest Christian stormed in front with a block and an error from Beckman, and an ace off of Rainier’s back row sealed the upset victory for the Crusaders.
“It takes a whole team. When you’ve got a couple that are not quite up to where they need to be, it’s difficult,” Carrie Ooms said. “But as a whole, we win and lose as a team. It’s definitely disappointing. They were hoping to get further than what they did today. But they still have quite a bit to be proud of.”
Rainier (17-5) can still earn its third straight state trophy if it wins Thursday at 8 a.m. in a rematch of the district title match against Toutle Lake.
The Central 2B League nor District 4 are represented in the 2B state semifinals. Rainier, Onalaska and Toutle Lake all lost in the quarters, while Toledo fell in the first round before winning in the consolation quarters. A District 4 team has not won the state championship since Kalama in 2016, and that drought will reach a decade.
