The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

MILTON FREEWA­TER - The Waitsburg-Prescott varsity volleyball squad warmed up for the season this Saturday in their match against McLoughlin High School (Mac-Hi), easily winning the first three games to take top score 25 - 12, 25 - 17 and 25 - 22.

Coach Jesse Buehler, while excited to have her team win its first game of the season, reported that player stats were uncom­monly low. Only Waits­burg senior Genesis Pear­son had enough kills to note, making five during the evening's games, she said.

Center Kayla Hux­oll, a Waitsburg junior, had seven assists. The team's leading server was Iris Batalla, a senior at Prescott, who was nine for 10 with four aces.

"Player stats are usually a lot higher," Buehler said. "But this was our first game and the competi­tion was pretty low. There were a lot of dead balls and not a lot of opportuni­ties." To prepare for the team's first league match coming up this Wednes­day, Buehler had the squad "trying out differ­ent things, playing out of rotation and testing things out." "And the thing with volleyball is they have to warm up and then get go­ing, but with that pace of a game it was hard to get going," she said. Saturday's match was also the first of the season for Mac-Hi players, who are younger and more inexperienced than WP's veteran team. "They also have a new coach, which can make things tough at first," Bue­hler said. And both squads were short players who had to sit the game out because they'd missed so many practices during the week of the Walla Walla County Fair. The Cardinals' first league match this Wednes­day will be against Day­ton. "We were lucky to get this warm-up game," Bue­hler

said. "We're Dayton's first game of the season and we expect to come out well."

Dayton and WP are more evenly matched. Last year WP lost its first game with Dayton, but won the second match against this rival team when they met on Kison Court. Buehler said her squad has been looking forward to Wednesday's game for a long time. "Their anticipation is just crazy right now," she said. "We're looking to definitely win." Wednesday's match will take place in Waits­burg. The junior varsity squad plays at 5:30 p.m. and varsity matches be­gins at 7.

SCORES: First Match: WP 25/Mac-Hi 12 Second Match: WP 25/Mac-Hi 17 Third Match: WP 25/Mac-Hi 22