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Sutter advances past Woodland in straight sets: Huskies roll future league foe in set two

jeff larson, appeal-democrat, marysville, calif.
·4 min read

Oct. 25—The Sutter Union High girls volleyball team got a preview of life next year when it welcomed in Woodland Tuesday for the opening round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV playoffs hosted by Sutter Union High School.

The Huskies, seeded fifth, dispatched No. 12 Woodland in straight sets (25-22, 25-8, 25-16) behind 13 kills from senior outsider hitter Ashley Hudson. Junior Middle hitter Lainey Davis provided 10 kills on 19 swings, with one error, for an attack percentage of nearly .500 as Sutter relied on its potent offensive attack to advance into the SJS quarterfinals for a second straight year. The setter, Jaycee Lee, collected 34 assists in three sets.

This year, Sutter will get West Campus, a four-seed, at 7 p.m. Thursday at West Campus High School in Sacramento.

Sutter head volleyball coach Elizabeth Bhatti said Sutter-West Campus would be a rematch of last year's quarterfinals, except for the fact that West Campus was upset by Colfax in the opening round of 2022. Today's matchup marks the first time that Sutter and West Campus have squared off since 2019 when Sutter won in straight sets.

West Campus comes in 33-3 and 12-0 in the Greater Sacramento Region.

Bhatti will be relying on the team's versatile attack as a foundation for taking down West Campus and advancing to the semifinals.

Sutter (27-9) was explosive in all three sets against Woodland, the team's future league nemesis in next year's Division IV Golden Empire League. Sutter used a 20-1 run in set two to blowout Woodland, 25-8 and grab a 2-0 lead in the best-of-5.

"The nice thing about our three leading hitters, with Torrence (Harter) having the most kills, Ashley having the least amount of errors and Lola (Howsley) having the highest (attack) percentage, is you have tools and the ability to depend on each other," Bhatti said. "(The game plan) is definitely move it around and make the defense work. We try to have different middles in there, Lainey Davis has been having great nights at the net too, so it's moving the set around (and) keeping their defense guessing."

Set two began with the teams' exchanging leads six times, with five ties mixed in, before Sutter exploded with its match-changing run.

Woodland (15-13) tried to battle back in set three, but Sutter opened up a 6-0 lead that served as a baseline for an eventual 25-16 win to close-out the match.

A win Thursday and Sutter will make a repeat trip to the semifinals and in all likelihood another chance at Ripon, the team that swept Sutter out of the playoffs last year in the D-IV semifinals. Ripon is the top-seed in D-IV and will host No. 8 Hilmar tonight.

"I think they have a strong sense of knowing what they need to do," Bhatti said. "This season we were given the opportunity to see what happens when we aren't playing our best. Last year we didn't suffer as many losses so going into playoffs we hadn't faced that adversity. Having seen those losses this season we know what we need to do to avoid that. It's understanding what we have to do to control our game."

All Sac-Joaquin Section finals will be played Nov. 4 at Cosumnes River College and Modesto Junior College. There will be a mandatory championship breakfast for all finalists at 9 a.m. Nov. 2 at District 56 in Elk Grove.

In other action ...

East Nicolaus, which was moved up from No. 2 to No. 1 due to a seeding formula recalculation according to head coach Donald Takeuchi, swept No. 8 Happy Camp (25-3, 25-7, 25-13) to advance into the Northern Section Division V semifinals to be played Thursday night in East Nicolaus. Game time is set for the conclusion of Modoc-Quincy at 4:30 p.m. in East Nicolaus. The Spartans (26-2) get the winner and will play the nightcap Thursday.

Jadyn Hoffman led the way against Happy Camp with 11 kills and four service aces.

In Division IV, No. 3 Colusa (25-11) swept No. 6 Paradise in straight sets behind 11 kills from Elle Faris and five off the arm of Aliah Ramos. Addison Lay provided 7 kills and 24 assists for Colusa, which heads to Redding Thursday to take on No. 2 University Prep.

Willows is the top seed in D-IV and will host Pierce (Arbuckle) Oct. 31 at 7 p.m.

The D-IV and V finals will be played Nov. 4 at Foothill (Palo Cedro).

To purchase NSCIF tickets visit https://gofan.co/app/school/CIFNS. To buy SJS tickets visit https://gofan.co/app/school/CIFSJS.