‘Cats split pair as coach takes on new role

Published 7:41 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

The Mount Si girls’ volleyball team opened its home schedule with a nice, easy victory over the 4A Eastlake Wolves Tuesday night, Sept. 13. Scores in the sweep were 25-14, 25-19 and 25-14 in a match that took little more than an hour to complete.

Wildcat coach Bonnie Foote likely coached her last game until possibly the playoffs. She gave birth to a new baby late last week. The relative ease of her team’s victory was welcome for Foote, even though she didn’t think it was that easy.

“I don’t know that any match is easy in my opinion,” Foote said. “But I thought that the girls came out focused, they played well and they passed the ball well, which allowed us to get into our offense, and they stayed connected the whole match and that was important.”

Games one and two were all Mount Si, all the time. The Wildcats opened with the lead and never looked back in either game. In the first game, strong serving and front-court play, most notably by Sine Schirmer, Alisha Larion and Danielle Rehm, propelled the Wildcats to the game victory. The clinching point was scored when the Wolves failed to return a Wildcat tip over the net. The second game was the same story, as Sine, Larion, Rehm and Faith Hutcherson did much of the work and got the job done. Rehm’s kill on the sixth game point sealed the second game.

There was a more difficult start to the third game, however. The Wolves were feisty and took the lead several times during the early stages of play.

With the score 7-6 Eastlake, and things still very much in doubt at that point, Foote called a timeout to calm nerves.

“We just talked about getting them refocused and reconnected. Sometimes there’s going to be lulls in matches and it’s important that you stay even keel and so we just continually focus on staying even keel and playing our level, and they did it,” Foote said.

Mount Si responded and finally took the lead for good at 12-11. Hutcherson, Robyn Schirmer and especially Larion were key performers. With the score 15-12 following an Eastlake service error and resulting side-out point to Mount Si, Larion scored seven straight points on serve, including three aces, to wrest control of the game. With Miranda Pratt serving on the first match point, the Wolves hit the ball into the net and closed the door on a strong night overall.

The Schirmers – Sine, a junior, and Robyn, a freshman – are sisters. Both transferred to Mount Si from Kent prior to this season. Robyn says their transition into the program has been made easier by their teammates.

“They’ve just been like our own sisters. They’ve helped us out a lot,” she said. Older sister Sine is expecting a lot this season with the team.

“We have very high-set goals; we want to go to state and we want to go as far as we can and we’re working hard every day,” she said.

The Wildcats traveled to Bothell Thursday, Sept. 14, for a contest against the Bothell Cougars. Mount Si proved to be a tough customer for the Cougars, but couldn’t land the victory. Scores were 20-25, 25-20,13-25, 25-20 and 9-15 as Mount Si suffered its first loss of the year in a closely fought contest. According to Bothell’s volleyball Web site, Erin Ehrmantraut led the way for the Cougars with 24 kills.

It is expected that in Foote’s absence her top two varsity assistants, Dave Bachman and Callie Wesson, will share the duties as co-coaches.