Columbia Basin took a blemish in Set 2 but otherwise dominated a Friday night match against the Knights. The Hawks beat Wenatchee Valley 25-19, 23-25, 25-13, 25-18 to improve to 8-2 in league play and 15-9 overall.
The opener stayed even for a long stretch. The Knights led 12-11, and the score was tied at 14 when Katy Ball went back to serve. Nine straight Hawks points followed, driven by Addisen Ford and Adalei Lefebvre on the attack and Yahairi Sanchez distributing the ball. A tie became a 23-14 lead, and Columbia Basin finished the set hitting .400 with 16 kills against four errors.
Game 2 went the other way. The Hawks led by four midway through, but Wenatchee Valley caught up and took it 25-23. Columbia Basin hit .000 in the set, with 10 kills and 10 errors on 39 swings.
Game 3 is where the Hawks corrected course. Ella Jensen's serve produced a five-point run that made it 9-2, and Lefebvre collected four kills during it. Columbia Basin hit .381 in the set and won 25-13.
The fourth set was tighter. Wenatchee Valley tied it at 16 on back-to-back kills but the Hawks answered by outscoring the Knights 9-2 the rest of the way. Danika Koch's serve made it 20-16, and Sanchez ended the match with an ace of her own. Koch finished with three aces on the night.
Lefebvre led the offense with 17 kills and a .464 hitting percentage. Ford added 11 kills and seven blocks, two of them solo. Lexi Rupel put down nine kills, and Sanchez ran the offense with 41 assists and 10 digs. Ball led the back row with 12 digs.
The Hawks outhit the Knights .226 to .098 and out-dug them 61 to 44. They also edged them in blocks, 10 to 8, which kept Wenatchee Valley's attack inefficient even in the set it won.
CBC remains at 2nd place in the East with a looming rematch against rival Walla Walla which will likely decide the tie-breaker between the two teams.
