HS Volleyball: Battle of 3A unbeatens goes to North Thurston as Rams handle White River

10/6/2025

North Thurston 3, White River 0 (25-11, 25-12, 26-24)

(Lacey, WA) This non-league match-up was originally scheduled for early September but had to moved setting up a mid-season interesting cross-league showdown between unbeaten squads and two state placing teams from last season.

The North Thurston Rams were 8-0 coming in and are laser focused on getting back to the State Championship match but this year finishing the deal. The Rams were the 2nd seed in last year’s tournament and made it to the title match against 1 seed Ridgeline. The 1 vs 2 didn’t disappoint as they went 5 sets with Ridgeline getting the win.

Meantime, the White River Hornets were the 10 seed and won their opening match against 7 seeded Central Kitsap to face the Rams in the quarterfinals. North Thurston advanced with a 3-1 win. The Hornets would then battle their way through the consolation with a 3-0 win over 3 seed Prairie to get to the trophy round. 8 seed Liberty would beast White River to take 5th place and the 10 seeded Hornets went home with the 6th place trophy.

Hornets Coach Hayley Steinman was not unhappy that the match got moved to mid-season. Steinman told us before the match, “this is really going to give us a realistic look at where we are taking on the #1 RPI team and state runner-up from last year. We have been doing well in our league (NPSL 3A) but it’s so hard to measure how you line up with other great programs. We will find out tonight taking on the Rams.”

The Hornets found out quickly they have some things to work on over the next few weeks before they head into postseason play. North Thurston jumped out to a 2-0 lead with comfortable wins of 25-11 and 25-12.

In both matches the front line and attackers pummeled the Hornets defense. Addy Conner, Abby Losey, Samantha Humphrey and Kaelani Adams were blocking shots or partially blocking shots setting up spikes and kills left and right.

The there was Jaeda Cruz, a 5’4 defensive specialist who came into serve in the 1st set and the Rams were just beginning to pull away from the Hornets who hung tough for the first 11 points trailing at one point 11-10. Cruz stepped in with a 15-11 lead and proceeded to fire off 10 straight points to clinch the opening set 25-11. Cruz was mixing her serves like a seasoned major league pitcher with the hard low fastball even clipping the tape a couple of times to the change up and placement all over the court. Her serving set up the Rams return game.

In the 2nd set Cruz came up to serve with the Rams leading 7-5 and she fired off 8 straight points to give the Rams an insurmountable 15-5 lead as North Thurston went on to the 25-12 win to go up 2-0. Adding it up, Cruz served 18 straight points from the final 10 of the 1st serve to the 8 of her first round serving in the 2nd set. For the match Cruz served 23 times scoring 19 for an incredible 83% scoring rate.

The 3rd set was more of the same with North Thurston looking to end this match quick and sending a massive message to not only the Hornets but the rest of the 3A teams that they are locked in on finishing the job in 2025.

The Rams raced out to a 17-6 lead. Everything going the Rams way. The Hornets chipped away a little bit and got to 20-13. The Hornets then dug deep and made a run with terrific defense and timely offense. They trimmed the lead to 21-16 when Jordyn Kaelin scored 2 with a big kill shot from Emery Stevenson.

Grace Harrison then took over on their next possession trailing 22-19 and cut the lead to 22-21 on a massive spike from Marli Miller. The Rams gave the serve back leading 23-22 and Taylor Arnold tied it and then the Hornets surged to take their first lead of the entire night forcing a set point 24-23.

North Thurston tied it at 24-24 and then got 2 winning serves from Anna Sheeran to put away the match 26-24 for a 3-0 win.

But that 3rd set is a huge confidence booster for the Hornets who could have easily thrown in the towel trailing 17-6 which meant they went on an 18-6 run to take the lead 24-23. Despite suffering their 1st loss and how they lost the 1st two sets compared to the 3rd set, this will be fun to watch this Hornet team over the next few weeks and how they will focus to get better flor the post season.

The Rams no doubt not happy how they finished off the match but they did have a few reserves in the 3rd set and they showed they’re focused on one thing in 2025. The late run by the Hornets can also be beneficial to the Rams reminding them to finish and nothing is settled until someone wins by 2.

The 3A volleyball championships are a must watch in 2025, this is going to be a fun ride to the SunDome in Yakima.

Our Sumner Holiday Inn Express MVP of the match was Jaeda Cruz. Her incredible run at the service line and how she kept changing up her serves kept the Hornets off balance and set up many easy returns for North Thurston. Abby Losey, Addy Connor and Samantha Humphrey all had big matches along with libero Anna Sheeran.

Had the Hornets pulled off the win Marli Miller, Emery Stevenson, Jordyn Kaelin and the Hornets libero Ema Froemke would have been in the discussion.

Both teams are back to their league play tonight with the 9-0 Rams hosting Lincoln and the 7-1 Hornets at home against Auburn-Mountainview.

Click this link to watch the full replay on the NFHS Network (subscription required)