YAKIMA — Tumwater took a hard look in the mirror after falling short to Sehome in the 2A State quarterfinals late Friday night in Yakima.
How would the Thunderbirds’ season be defined? By another gut-wrenching loss in the quarters? Or by their persistence and grit despite undoubtable heartbreak to bring a trophy back to the Tumwater trophy case?
The T-Birds vowed to take the latter, and they emphatically followed through.
Fourth-seeded Tumwater bounced back and swept ninth-seeded West Valley, and then the T-Birds rallied from down 2-1 to beat Archbishop Murphy in five to secure fifth place — their first state trophy since their magical 2016 state championship run.
It wasn’t a simple task playing another game just 13 hours following a painful loss. But Tumwater’s veteran group, powered by 10 upperclassmen, flipped a switch Saturday morning.
“We all had to think about it a little bit, feel our emotions and then reset,” senior Tove Hugus said after the West Valley match. “We flushed it when we woke up this morning. Start a new day, pretend that it didn’t even happen and just go in with a new mindset of, ‘We want this even more now. We’re gonna go as hard as we can. We’re gonna earn this.’
“We were just on fire.”
Oddly, the first point going in Tumwater’s direction against West Valley was a boost it seemed to need. In its two contests Friday, the T-Birds only scored first in one of its seven sets. Against
Sehome, they struggled early in sets, and the 1-0 start against West Valley was their first lead since winning the first set against the Mariners.
As Hugus delivered the first blow of Saturday’s match via a powerful kill, the T-Birds seemed to take a collective breath, and as they continued to throw jabs at West Valley, they were back to form. Tumwater never trailed in the first set and led 25-21.
The Eagles scrapped with Tumwater in a back-and-forth second set that saw the T-Birds separate themselves with a 9-3 finish after a 16-16 tie.
In the third set, Tumwater displayed a remarkable defensive effort. Senior libero Lalie Betschart made a living on the floor diving for blocked balls and kept every ball alive without a miss. The front row of Paige Henderson, Chloe Henderson and Kyla Malroy swatted West Valley’s attacks relentlessly. Tumwater scored the first six points of set three and didn’t let up in a 25-16 verdict.
“Defense is such a mindset thing. It’s about being relentless back there and being scrappy and going after balls, even if you don’t know if you can get there,” Tumwater head coach Kennedy Croft said. “We really wanted to be scrappy today. That was something that we kept saying about Sehome last night. We wanted to be the scrappiest team today.”
Tumwater kept its scrappy attitude going in its final contest of the season against sixth-seeded Archbishop Murphy. The Wildcats took two of the first three sets before Tumwater gutted out a tough fourth set win to force a fifth — the first match to go the distance this season for the T-Birds.
The T-Birds took care of business in the fifth and sent its seven seniors off with a state trophy and a career-defining victory with their backs against the wall.
Tumwater finishes the 2025 season with a 19-4 record and a fifth-place state finish in Croft’s debut season as head coach.
“We’ve been after that since the beginning. That’s something that we set early in the year as a goal,” Croft said of winning a state trophy after the West Valley match. “It means a lot. I’m looking to build a program that consistently brings trophies back every year, so this is just the start of that.”
Seven seniors graduate from the program: the Henderson twins, Betschart, Milani Palizzi, Bailey Broeker, Courtney Manning, and 2025 EvCo MVP Hugus. The group left a legacy that includes four league titles, including a co-title in 2022 with Black Hills, and now a fifth-place state trophy.
“It feels so good. We all wanted this so much, and this is one of my favorite teams I’ve ever been on,” Hugus said after the West Valley match. “We have so many good players on this team that all work together as one to do something so special.”