Yellow Pages
BURLINGTON — The 2009 Burlington-Edison volleyball team’s attack bears little resemblance to the one from a year ago.
About the only thing similar, at least for the first match, was the outcome.
The Tigers got their season off to an efficient start Thursday night with a 25-16, 25-11, 25-14 non-conference dismantling of Oak Harbor.
“I’m very happy,” said Tigers coach Tawnya Brewer, whose team starts three sophomores and a freshman. “For the first match, they had no jitters, and we’re still so young.”
With Kinsey Davis and her school-record kill total graduated, the Tigers spread out of the offense. Setter Katlyn Mataya found pretty much everyone on the court for attacks here and there.
Cheryl Eubanks led the balanced attack with nine kills and two aces. Anna Swanson finished with seven kills and Lucy Capron had six and a pair of aces, as well. Mataya added three kills to go with 19 assists while directing the offense.
“I think we played really well,” Eubanks said. “We’re moving around really well. We’ve been meshing well.”
The Tigers scraped up just about everything the Wildcats could throw at them, transitioning quickly into their attack.
Burlington-Edison never trailed in any of the games, pulling out to comfortable leads in the early parts of all three games. Oak Harbor climbed as close at 9-7 in the second game, but the Tigers rattled off six of the next seven points and 16 of the final 20 to put the game away.
“Our transition was really good,” Brewer said. “Everybody had great swings, and we did a great job of mixing the offense. I liked how they controlled the pace.”
For Oak Harbor (1-1), the match was the complete opposite of Tuesday’s five-set victory over Cascade.
“We’ve seen both extremes of how we can play,” Wildcats coach Kerri Molitor said. “I don’t know. Tuesday night they were in sync, tonight they were totally out of sync.”
Marisa Sutherland led Oak Harbor with four kills. Amanda Blau added two kills and two blocks.
• Eric Francis can be reached at 360-416-2131 or by e-mail at .
