On Tuesday night, the Hawks and the Mavericks clashed in the Terraceum where the Hawks fought hard and came out with a 3-1 victory.
The Hawks have had a trend all season long of starting out games slow and not being able to recover from there. Likewise, in the first game of this match, the Hawks started out slowly. Lucky for them, the Mavericks did as well. It was a battle of who could find their rhythm and maintain their consistency. The Hawks were able to gain a rush of momentum and cruise past the Mavericks 25-17, giving them a lead of 1-0 in the match.
“As a team, we, in a couple spots, were playing down with the [Mavericks],” senior outside-hitter Alisha Clingan said. “But we didn’t let that stop us. We just kept playing up and playing our game.”
In the second game, the Hawks started off slowly again. The Mavericks pinned the Hawks against the wall after reaching a lead of 23-16. The Hawks might’ve been down, but they weren’t out despite the huge deficit. They tried to mount a comeback, but after a six point run, the Mavericks woke up, made adjustments, and closed them out, 25-22. The Mavericks went on to tie the game up in the match, 1-1.
The Hawks, unlike the last two games, came out ferociously. They went up 8-2 purely by making all the right plays in the right situations. They started to sit on that lead and before they knew it, they were down 14-19. This game was purely a game of runs. The Hawks made the right adjustments and came storming back to take a 24-23 lead. The Mavericks forced extra time by tying the game up at 24, and from there it was a grindout for which team could outlast the other. The Hawks edged the Mavericks out 29-27, giving them the lead back in the match, 2-1.
The Hawks have two captains on the team, and in the fourth game, co-captain Clingan led the charge with an incredible performance that she would later be recognized for by being awarded with the title of Red Onion Player of the Game.
“A lot of the girls stepped up,” sophomore setter Grace Roko said. “We had a lot of really good passes, and that sets up for the girls, and [Clingan] killed it because she’s a beast.”
Under the leadership of Clingan, the Hawks dominated the demoralized Mavericks in the fourth game. After the Hawks gained a lead of 20-15 over the Mavericks, they went on cruise control and ended up winning the game, 25-18. The Hawks win the match, 3-1.
“It just went well,” senior defensive-specialist Esther Babko said. “We were talking the whole time, we didn’t down on ourselves, and we just stayed positive the whole tie.”
“We just did it,” Clingan said. “A lot of times, we say all this stuff that we’re going to do, and all this stuff that we are going to do differently, but don’t do it. We really just put that and applied it to our game. We got it done.”
More importantly, through this win, the Hawks finally snapped their eight match losing streak.
“It’s about time,” Clingan said. “I knew we could’ve beaten so many of the teams we lost to, but everything just fell into place tonight.”
During their eight match losing streak, the Hawks went through a lot of frustration.
“We have group of very talented girls and so losing was really hard for us and very frustrating,” Roko said. “We’re not done with the season so we just got to keep fighting, and make every last game good so we can end the season with a good note.”
The Hawks have three games left in their season, and their next one is against the Hawks’ rivals, the Lynnwood Royals. It is at Lynnwood High School, and the game is at 7:00 p.m.
“I’m really stoked for the next games to come,” Babko said, “I feel like even though we kept losing and losing and losing, we still kept fighting, and we’re still going to push it hard for the games to come.
