District 3A Greater St. Helens – The Players to Watch

Guilherme Torres December 25, 2020 @ 12:37 PM

Over the last few months, we’ve provided you a lot of information about who are the players you won’t want to miss when the high school volleyball season starts in Washington next March. First we broke the players down by division and then we switched gears to analyze who are expected to be the most outstanding athletes in the top teams of each of those divisions. For the next several weeks, we’ll dive even deeper, taking a closer look at each of the 46 district leagues in the state of Washington and pointing out the players we believe will be worth your attention in the near future. As we start dissecting the 3A class, our final district is the Greater St. Helens, which has five high schools, and some of their players with the greatest upside are:   [player_tooltip player_id="97025" first="Katie" last="Peneueta"] – Middle-Blocker/Outside Hitter – Senior - Heritage [player_tooltip player_id="97025" first="Katie" last="Peneueta"] was on absolute fire last season for Heritage. The 6’2” prospect, which split her time between middle-blocker and outside hitter duties, stood out in basically every aspect of the game for the Timberwolves. Peneueta, who’s also a talented basketball player, ended the season with jaw-dropping stats, including 287 kills, 29 aces, 58 blocks, 203 digs and 299 passes. She was an All-League first-team selection at the 4A Greater St. Helens district in which Heritage competed in 2019. She ranks 46th at prepdig.com’s class of 2021 ranking.   Ava Nichols – Middle-Blocker – Junior - Kelso Ava Nichols had outstanding production for Kelso during the 2019 campaign which ended in a third-place finish at the State Championship, scoring in double-digits at a very frequent rate for the Hilanders. The 5’10” middle-blocker was an important two-way player, helping her team on offense with high-efficiency spikes and on defense with a reliable blocking game. Her performance took her to the All-League team as a second-team selection.   Kaila Bonawitz – Outside Hitter – Senior – Mountain View Kaila Bonawitz has hands down Mountain View’s most important player in the team’s 2019 campaign. The Thunder might not have been brilliant, winning only two of their six matches in the district, but Bonawitz, a 5’8” outside hitter with a solid all-around game which allowed her to help the team in several areas and who’s also a talented golf student-athlete, did just enough to earn an An-League second-team nomination.