Islanders sweep Kangaroos on senior night

By Shaun Scott • October 19, 2017 2:37 pm
Photo courtesy of Don Borin/Stop Action Photography Mercer Island senior Adara Hamilton makes a key block in a contest earlier this season against the Liberty Patriots this past September. The Islanders swept the Lake Washington Kangaroos 3-0 (25-15, 25-9, 25-12) on Oct. 18 on senior night.
Photo courtesy of Don Borin/Stop Action Photography Mercer Island senior Adara Hamilton makes a key block in a contest earlier this season against the Liberty Patriots this past September. The Islanders swept the Lake Washington Kangaroos 3-0 (25-15, 25-9, 25-12) on Oct. 18 on senior night.

The Mercer Island Islanders girls volleyball team put on a show for their hometown fans in the final regular season home match of the 2017 season.

Mercer Island cruised to a 3-0 (25-15, 25-9, 25-12) victory against the Lake Washington Kangaroos on Oct. 18 at Mercer Island High School. The Islanders improved their overall record to 14-1, including a 13-0 undefeated record in KingCo 3A/2A action. Islanders’ head coach Susan Rindlaub was focused on giving each senior player consisting of Tess Hendelman, Kelly Behrbaum, Jillian Quinn, Lindsey Lovsted, Jessie Bontatibus and Adara Hamilton a plentiful amount of playing time in their final home regular season contest of their high school careers.

“The last seven points it was only seniors on the floor. That was really cool,” Rindlaub said. “I adjusted the lineup a little bit so it was mostly just seniors playing the whole time. I was really proud of them.”

Behrbaum, who is a senior outside hitter, delivered the final point of the third set with thunderous kill to clinch the victory. The Islanders have won nine consecutive matches since losing to Eastside Catholic in a non-league match on Sept. 22. Mercer Island defeated Bellevue 3-2 in a battle between rivals on Oct. 16.

“We’re making a lot of progress. We definitely had an emotional and intense win against Bellevue on Monday (Oct. 16). That showed a lot of character. We were very resilient in the fifth game of that match,” Rindlaub said.

Mercer Island will compete in the KingCo 3A playoffs from Oct. 26-28. The Class 3A Sea-King district tournament will take place from Nov. 1-4 as well.

“The playoffs start next week. The girls are confident and they’ve been confident the whole season. It’s a matter of always being disciplined and putting in our best effort no matter who we are playing,” Rindlaub said. “We are going to be playing against some really strong teams starting in just a short amount of time. We can’t get too confident or arrogant at all because we’ll be playing much stronger teams when we get to districts.”