Mountlake Terrace entered Thursday night’s volleyball game with an impressive 12-4 record. Make that 12-5 after their 3-1 defeat to the Ferndale Golden Hawks in a District 1 playoff game.

After losing the first set, 25-16, the Hawks came out playing on their heels, but were able to recover and play with confidence to win the second set 25-20.

The Hawks failed to continue their momentum into the third set, falling 25-19 through questionable officiating that was the story of the game all night long. The defining moment of the refs’ questionable officiating came in the third set, where senior Meg Roberts hit was blocked. She immediately recovered and passed it to teammate Ali Hitchcock and then another Terrace player set the ball over the net to the Ferndale side, who played it normally.

Everyone saw it as a routine rally. Everyone but the refs, that is, who apparently counted four hits on the Hawks. The only possible reason would be that they counted Roberts’ hit and recovery as two separate hits. If that were the case, then the correct call would have had to be a double hit (which is wrong as well as the hit was CLEARLY blocked by Ferndale).

Another controversial call was where (again) Roberts hit the ball downwards on a kill, and yet the refs called a lift against her. You read that right. A lift on a downward kill. Yeah, blows my mind too.

These were just two examples of questionable officiating, not to mention the line judges missing some clear calls, but that’s another story. Final line is the Hawks fell 3-1 , rallying in the thrid set but couldn’t overcome the momentum killing calls (or no calls) from officials, and coming up just short in the fourth and final set.

The Hawks take on the Meadowdale Mavericks on Saturday at 1 PM at Glacier Peak High School. They have won one and lost one against the Mavs during the regular season.