Tumwater volleyball looks to get back on top of 2A EvCo

You can’t win ‘em all.

It’s one of the oldest truisms in sports, but when a team is accustomed to winning almost all its competitions, a break in a run of success can be devastating.

Last spring, Tumwater High School’s volleyball team entered the pandemic-shortened spring season on a run of 2A Evergreen Conference titles dating back to 2010. They had a loaded roster, with seven girls who would go on to become at least honorable mention all-league.

But Centralia had a generational team, grabbing its first ever league championship in the sport, sweeping the T-Birds in one match and outlasting them in five sets the second time. Tumwater’s players and coaches were momentarily stranded in unfamiliar territory.

“It was heartbreaking,” said middle blocker Alyssa Duncan, now a senior and the EvCo MVP during the spring. “You hate to lose a legacy like that.”

Brooklynn Hayes was a freshman who would be selected first team all-league. But she was temporarily playing a new position, libero, and well aware of the success that had come before she arrived.

“You look up to all the girls at Tumwater for years, then you come and it doesn’t happen,” she said.

Co-head Coach Jordan Stray had irony thrown at her. She attended Centralia before going on to play in college at Linfield University.

“Centralia had a great team, they worked hard to earn it, but even though I’m a grad it was incredibly disappointing for us,” she said.

The T-Birds’ talent was spread out across the classes, with two freshmen, Hayes and Emily Robello, playing significant roles. But co-coach Jill Giudice didn’t see that as a reason for Tumwater to come up short.

“We don’t go into any season thinking it’s a transition year and we’re not going to be that good,” she said. “We set the bar high and strive for excellence.”

Tumwater discovered it also had resilience. The T-Birds won their final six spring matches and opened this fall with a road sweep of 3A powerhouse Capital.

“Last season was so fun at the end,” said Hayes, along with Duncan, a first team Olympian All-Area selection in the spring. “We started working harder and meshed together as a team.”

Duncan agreed.

“We got our confidence back and kept pushing forward,” said Duncan. “We wanted to be better and developed good chemistry.”

The strong finish has fueled a good start for Tumwater during the fall season thus far.

“This group was able to hit the ground running” said Stray. “They already knew where to go. They can help the newer kids to our core group.”

A plus has been the return of bonding activities lost to COVID-19 restrictions during the 2020-21 school year. The T-Birds made an overnight trip to Westport, having a scavenger hunt and making music videos.

“We’re so happy we could do that,” Duncan, also a standout track and field athlete who hopes to pursue at least one of her sports at a Christian college next year. “It brought us closer and built our trust in one another.”

Giudice says friendship and fun go a long way toward making a strong team, but knows her players need a touch of killer instinct as well. She saw it against Capital.

“They were fierce and hungry. They wanted it. They had patience,” she said.

On a team that gets along well, that fierceness sometimes needs to be coached.

“They know all the right things to do. But it’s not just about coming to practice playing the game you love with all your friends,” Giudice, who previously coached at Tenino, said. “We have to get them to be hungry for the win.”

Thus, Tumwater’s practices are filled with competitive drills and situations.

On the court, the T-Birds have shifted Hayes back to her usual outside hitter position after a year at libero and have another string hitter in Kira Turcotte, who averaged 1.51 kills per set last season.

Tumwater’s greatest strength is in the middle where six-footers Duncan and junior Isabella Burney, a second team All-Evco pick, hold sway. Duncan averaged 2.4 kills per set and had a 91.6 serving percentage in the spring. Burney let the team in blocks and tied the T-Bird record for blocks in a match with seven against Centralia,

“She was upset she didn’t break it,” Stray said, laughing. “When she gets a block and it goes straight down, her whole team is so thrilled for her.”

Though they opened with a quality win over the 3A South Sound Conference champs from Capital, the T-Birds start hasn’t been perfect. They dropped a three set match to defending 2A South Puget Sound League champion Steilacoom at home Monday night.

“We can make all kinds of excuses, but it’s an important growing opportunity for us,” said Stray. “Volleyball is a game of mistakes and the challenge is to learn from them and correct them.”

Duncan saw silver linings in the loss to the Sentinels.

“Rewatching that game, I could see Steilacoom is such a good team with so many good hitters,” she said. “We actually played a pretty good game, but there are also so many things we can fix.”.

Next up for the T-Birds is their league opener at home against W.F. West on Tuesday. With Centralia losing key players to graduation, the Bearcats may join the T-Birds and crosstown rival Black Hills as the top EvCo contenders.