Photo by Sean Patterson

ALOHA - Poor starts and good finishes. The Canby High School volleyball team had a bit of both on Saturday at an Aloha High School tournament.

Unfortunately for Canby, the latter didn't come often enough.

The Cougars lost to the host Warriors 14-16, 15-13, 13-15 in the quarterfinals of afternoon bracket play. That after Canby had compiled a 1-5 record in round-robin action, placing it last in its four-team pool.

The Cougars lost 4-15, 12-15 to Oregon City in the early morning match, split with Benson 15-9, 6-15 and fell to Westview 3-15, 6-15 in the final round-robin matchup.

But No. 4 seed Canby rose to the occasion versus top-seeded Aloha, which went 6-0 in round-robin play, in the first-round of bracket action. Even though the Cougars got off to sluggish starts in their three games, they ended them with an impressive flurry of points.

"We didn't start the games well," said Canby head coach Judi Gay. "We come out and they were up 5-0 or 7-0 already. But we hung tough and certainly in pool play we got tougher as the day went along."

Canby fell behind 5-1 in the first game of the Aloha match, 4-2 in the second game and 7-0 in the rally-scoring deciding game. In only the second game did the Cougars manage to overcome their poor start and win the set.

When they did win, it was through serving and offensive flow. Led by senior Jenny Lawrence, Canby erased a 13-9 second-game deficit to win going away.

Lawrence had four aces, was 18-of-20 serving on the day and served out the final six points of the middle game.

Lawrence also chipped in 24 digs and three kills for the match.

"I was just on," Lawrence said of her dipping serve. "I wasn't thinking of the pressure. I think we're coming together as a team."

She's right. The Cougars seemed relaxed, determined and in more of a flow than in recent weeks. The only things holding them back against Aloha were communication and court coverage. The two go hand-in-hand in volleyball, and although the Cougars made strides on Saturday they still are a ways from realizing their full potential. In the end, it limited Canby's point-scoring ability.

Case in point was the Aloha match, in which Canby did an excellent job of siding out and containing the Warriors' production. But the girls couldn't consistently put together large point strings like the six-point romp in the second game.

"Today we didn't get the large run, but we did get a lot of sideouts," Gay said. "The girls did a good job of limiting the opposition to a couple points here and couple of points there each time, but when you can't get those points back in a run, you'll have problems.

''When we get the ball we need to keep it on our side,'' she added.

Michelle Boeckman, like her team, got stronger as the day went on. The athletic junior middle blocker had seven kills, four blocks and 18 digs against Aloha. She had three consecutive kills at the end of the second game to help Canby force a third set.

Ellie Raines also had seven kills in the match and finished the second-game victory with a block and kill for points. Senior blocker Danielle Palmer came up big, literally, with three kills and a block, including a back-to-back block/kill combo in the third game to keep her team alive at 12-12.

Setter Jamie Schantin was in a groove assisting her teammates and was 8 of 8 from the serve line. Also perfect serving was Caitlin O'Connor, with an 8-of-8 string, and sophomore Tori Beck, who was 10 of 10. Also helping was Justine Rhodes with five digs. Rhodes also had two kills and a block versus Benson while Natalie Postlewait had a kill versus Westview.

Earlier in the day, Palmer was big, too. She had four kills and one block against Benson and followed that with three blocks and three kills versus Westview. Many were the in-your-face variety. Lawrence had seven kills versus Benson to lead the team while Jamie Schuknecht had one block.

When the dust settled, it was a positive tournament for Canby. A tweak there and a tweak here could get the Cougars rolling toward the postseason.

"It's hard to win when you get down," Gay said. "But the girls showed a lot of heart. We sided out well, but just couldn't score."

Canby, 5-6 in Pacific-9 Conference play, hosted Tualatin Tuesday and takes on Newberg and McMinnville Thursday in Newberg beginning at 4:30 p.m.