Bears claw into North’s spikers

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, September 28, 2005

POULSBO — Moving one seat to the right on the Viking bench Monday night made junior varsity coach Jessica Harney experience a whole new realm of the game.

Harney sat in, for her first time, as North Kitsap head coach, as Tim French was called away just prior to game time on a family emergency.

“It was completely different,” Harney said of the varsity level. “There’s a big difference in the level of play. I had to be so aware of everything going on.”

Unfortunately, Harney’s record at the spot fell to 0-1.

North Kitsap couldn’t rally from a game down in the fourth, as the visiting Bay Division rival Olympia Bears took the Vikings (7-9), 25-19, 22-25, 25-19, 25-12.

For NK, setter and team captain Kearney Bangs had 13 assists and backup setter Amy Cox added seven of her own. KC Fossum had a team high 11 kills for the Vikings, and libero Lauren Romero had 31 digs while Jessica Oullet had 14.

Though many players commented on how well Harney did filling the head coaching role, a missing French on the bench made focusing throughout the game more difficult for the Vikings.

“It was different not having him there,” said North’s Joanna Kaiserman. “I felt like there was something missing.”

Olympia held a consistent lead for most of the first game, with NK never getting within less than four points of the Bears.

In game two, the Vikings stepped up play with aggressive hitting, spurred by the diving digs of Romero, and took a closely fought battle, 25-22.

A tight third game eventually gave way to the Bears, whose scrappy play gave the team just enough chances to overtake North, 25-19.

In the fourth, the Vikings seemed to fall apart, and Olympia kept rolling to take the victory.

Bangs said the Bears, a much improved team from a year ago, got stronger as the match wore on.

“They picked it up in the third and fourth games,” she said. “They started out slow and got a lot better.”

North Kitsap’s schedule doesn’t get any easier from here: after a match at Capital today, the Vikings will host defending Narrows’ Bridge champs Central Kitsap Oct. 4, followed by games with last year’s second and third place teams, Shelton and Gig Harbor.

“We’ve got tough teams ahead,” Kaiserman said. “We’re gonna have to step it up and work hard.”

Still, the Vikings believe they can get better as the season progresses, thanks to a new aspect of practice the team has introduced this year. After each game, the squad watches the last contest on tape and looks for its errors. They then hit the hardwood and work directly on the particular weakness.

“We’ve gotta keep finding what went wrong and try to fix it,” Romero said.