Longtime North Thurston volleyball head coach Jackie Meyer remembers a state tournament trip a few years ago and overhearing a team say, “Who’s North Thurston?”
Safe to say no one is saying that anymore.
The target is squarely on the North Thurston Rams’ backs after they won their first 3A state championship in 2025 — the first girls’ team title in school history. Meyer’s group had made it to the 3A title match the year prior but fell short against Ridgeline in a five-set thriller in the Yakima Valley SunDome.
It was easy to guess where the motivation came from heading into last season.
But this year, the defending champions Rams have a new batch of leaders following the graduation of two-time Puget Sound League Nisqually MVP Addy Conner and perennial all-leaguers Sammy Humphrey and Anna Sheeran.
One constant, however, is the culture of success that Meyer has established in her 17 years at North Thurston. If anything, this state title has only elevated that standard.
“I think it’s given the girls a little bit more of a sense of pride,” Meyer said. “That state title put us on the map. Wearing that purple and being Rams has been noticed now. We’ve built a winning culture here at North Thurston. Our girls know what that means, and we plan to be back and we plan to bring some hardware home.”
At the forefront of that goal is senior outside hitter Abby Losey, who was a first team all-league talent each of the past two seasons and has been a starter since her freshman year. She was named a team captain in the preseason and has developed as a veteran leader in the locker room.
That leadership will be key in 2026 with the Rams certain to get every team’s best shot in an improved Puget Sound League.
“We talk amongst each other and we all make sure we’re on the same page,” Losey said. “There’s definitely a lot of new girls. We are all trying to learn about each other and connect.”
The Rams want that pressure. They want to be challenged before they inevitably make the trip over the mountains in November. North Thurston lost just once in 2025, as Lakes beat the Rams in four. Meyer’s group never saw a fifth set and only lost nine sets all year. Of their 25 wins, 19 of them were sweeps.
Senior Kaelani Adams, who is moving into an outside hitter role after previously spending time on the right side, is another veteran leader who feels no anxiety about the pressure that comes with being a state champion.
“I love having pressure. It makes me play better. It makes me work harder, and I think it also makes our team work harder,” Adams, a Second Team All-PSL Nisqually selection in 2025, said. “The pressure definitely can become hard sometimes, but we focus on talking to each other and bringing each other up. That makes it easier.”
Replacing a steady setter in Humphrey will be difficult, but in a 6-2 system, the Rams will utilize two setters in junior Madison Abrahamson and junior Jazlyn Strachan, who moved up to varsity from junior varsity. Senior Jaeda Cruz will step into Sheeran’s role as the libero and is one of the stronger servers on the roster, and freshman Maya Jaenicke has impressed in that spot as a newcomer so far this preseason.
Seniors Ava Almonte and Kelci Teo will move from the middle position to the right side. Almonte has also stepped into a leadership role among a group of seven seniors. She, Cruz, Losey, Chloe Spaulding, Teo, Adams and Audrey Krocker are motivated to become the first 3A team since Mount Spokane in 2018-19 to repeat as state champions in their final prep season.
“The target is big. The pressure is real. That’s why we’ve been in the gym every day trying to get better, work harder and be above what we were last year,” Almonte said. “That’s hard. We have a lot of new talent. I’m really excited to build that chemistry with them and pick up where we left off last year.”
The Nisqually Division of the PSL is loaded with talented teams, including Timberline, which placed seventh at state last season, as well as Capital, Lakes, Peninsula, and an improved River Ridge team. In the Narrows, Central Kitsap returns almost everyone, and Lincoln has an experienced bunch.
But they’re all chasing North Thurston, and so is all of District 3, as the Rams have won three district titles in a row. So is all of Class 3A, and the Rams have no plans to pass the championship baton to another team. As far as they’re concerned, it’s theirs to keep.
“We’ve talked about setting the standard coming off of a state championship. We talked about where our current standard is and not living below that standard,” Meyer said. “We’re holding each other accountable. When they come into the gym, we have what’s called the ‘purple line.’ They step into that ‘purple line,” and they give 100% the whole time for that practice. We’ve talked about the ‘dawg’ mentality. Where’s that energy? Who’s going to be that person that brings that ‘dawg’ mentality?”
North Thurston kicks off its season at Gig Harbor Thursday night.
