Story and photos by Tracy Burrows
Special to West Seattle Blog

Thursday night at the Highline High gym, the West Seattle High School volleyball team punched their ticket to this year’s state tournament, beating the Roosevelt Rough Riders 3-1 in the quarterfinals of the district tournament.

Despite having to play short-handed due to injuries and illness, West Seattle kept getting stronger as the match went on.

They dropped the first set by a score of 25-22, in a contest that featured long rallies and hard-fought points. Between sets, head coach Scott Behrbaum told the team to relax, play freely, and have fun. The Wildcats made small adjustments in their attack and defense and came back to win three straight sets, capping it off with a 25-11 victory in the final set.

An enthusiastic crowd of WSHS Wildcats supporters who traveled to Burien witnessed the team advance to the state tournament for the second year in a row. It’s a remarkable turnaround for a program that hadn’t previously qualified for the state tourney since the 1970s. They will be facing Bellevue in the semifinals of the district tournament at Lakeside School on Saturday at 9:00 am. The outcome of the rest of the district tournament matches will factor into the seeding for next week’s state tournament in Yakima.