Volleyball club opens season with third-place finish

YAKIMA, Wash. — The Sandpoint Volleyball Club U17 team opened its club season with a third place finish out of 36 teams in the Yakima Jamboree U18 Power Division last weekend.

The locals swept through day one, beating the Olympic Premier Volleyball Club U18s, Seattle Warriors U18 and the Desert VBC U17s in straight sets. Day two in the gold bracket had them opening with Cascade VBC U18s followed by University Place VBC 18 Black out of Seattle and the Columbia Juniors U18 Red. Sandpoint again swept their pool and entered the eight team gold bracket as the third seed.

Sandpoint opened Gold medal play with the Saturday Warriors U18s out of Puyallup and won in straight sets 25-21 and 25-16. 

The semi-final opponent was Cowlitz U18 Black from Oregon. Sandpoint opened quickly, winning game one 25-16, but then faltered, losing game two 25-22 and game three 15-13 to finish in third palce. 

“For our first tournament I thought everyone played well. Playing up a level and finishing third is a very solid finish, said coach Jack Dyck. “We will be a much more versatile offensive team this year and if we can improve defensively I think we have a chance to be very, very good on a national level.”

The U17 team features defensive specialists Aliisa Millard, Maddie Emmer and Spencer Schultz, hitters Christina Johnson, Kaiti Lunde, Piper Wahlin, Sasha Mitchell and Haily O’Dell, and setters Sierra Pancho and Kortney James.