Four Defensive Pairings Ready to Protect the Court

<p>Even though volleyball is a team sport, there’s probably no other aspect of the game in which its collective sense gets more prominent than defense. While an outstanding hitter, a fantastic server and a phenomenal blocker can each carry their teams based on their sole efforts, that is not the case with defense.</p> <p>An effective defensive system is rarely built upon a single player as these four pairings showed in 2019 and will probably show again when the 2020 season starts.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Ellie Marble and Rachel Cram – LaConner</strong></p> <p>LaConner ranked second in digs (2,028) in the entire state and the duo of freshman outside hitter Ellie Marble and sophomore libero Rachel Cram had a lot to do with it. Marble, who took the 2B class by storm on her first high school season, and Cram both ranked within the top-12 in the state in digs with 410 (eight) and 393 (12^th), respectively. Their efforts, which helped the Braves win the State Championship, certainly didn’t go unnoticed as both made it to the All-State Teams (Marble to the first, Cram to the second) and granted Marble a Co-Player of the Year Award.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Ella-Leigh Anderson and Addy Schmidt – Crosspoint</strong></p> <p>It’s fair to say that freshman outside hitter Ella-Leigh Anderson and sophomore libero Addy Schmidt had identical impacts in Crosspoint’s sixth-best defense in Washington in 2019. The two had the same 5.3 digs per set average and contributed with 687 of the team’s 1,729 digs last season – 345 for Anderson, the 22^nd-best defender in the state, and 342 for Schmidt, who ranked 23^rd. Their defensive work was vital for the team’s appearance at the State Championship.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="96984" first="Tia" last="Allen"] and [player_tooltip player_id="97012" first="Taylor" last="Miche"] – Mount Spokane</strong></p> <p>Mount Spokane’s victory at the State Championship in the 3A Class last year wouldn’t have happened without [player_tooltip player_id="96984" first="Tia" last="Allen"]’s and [player_tooltip player_id="97012" first="Taylor" last="Miche"]’s efforts in the backcourt. Allen, a junior outside hitter who was the Player of the Year in her class, had a prominent showing in the Wildcats’ 3-2 victory over Capital with 12 digs, but junior libero Miche was even more impressive with 35 defenses. The duo deservedly made it to the All-State first team and has earned their spot at the prepdig.com’s class of 2021 ranking.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Genevieve Wilkinson and Abigail Miller – Sultan</strong></p> <p>Sultan’s defensive performance was hands down the team’s main asset in 2019. The Turks ranked third in the state in digs (1,830) and fourth in digs per set (23.2), proving to be one of the toughest teams in the state to score at. Their backcourt efforts were led by sophomore libero Genevieve Wilkinson, who topped the entire state in digs (566) and digs per set (7.2), but she was substantially helped by junior outside hitter Abigail Miller, who registered 284 digs and ranked in the top-50 in Washington.</p>