Archbishop Murphy volleyball tops Edmonds-Woodway
Published 11:39 pm Thursday, October 22, 2026
EDMONDS — The last time Archbishop Murphy volleyball faced Edmonds-Woodway, the Sept. 29 match ended with a 3-0 defeat on their home court — the program’s first league loss since 2023. So when the two sides met again at Edmonds-Woodway High School on Thursday, Archbishop Murphy wanted to return the favor.
Team captains Teuila Halalilo and Ashley Fletcher cited discipline, communication and trust as focal points for the rematch, but coach Allie Sinex wanted to push one additional point: aggression.
“It’s hard and it’s a little scary sometimes to be aggressive in tight matches and points that matter,” Sinex said. “But we’ve been really trying to practice that way, and leaning into being in hard situations because we know it only gets harder from here on out.”
So when the Wildcats (13-2 overall, 10-1 league) jumped out to a 2-0 lead, they turned up the intensity around the net, totaling six blocks in the third set to secure a 3-0 win (25-16, 25-20, 25-11) against the Warriors (9-5, 7-3). In addition to avenging their lone league loss, Archbishop Murphy clinched its third straight Wesco South 3A/2A title.
The Wildcats cruised to a 9-1 lead in the third set, with three aces from senior Tamanh Huynh and a couple kills and blocks from Fletcher. Halalilo assisted two of junior Skylar Cohen’s kills, and joined the block party along with junior Sarah Fletcher to bring the lead up to 13-4. Edmonds-Woodway tried to close the gap, but Archbishop Murphy would not slow down. A second block from Halalilo pushed it to 19-10, and she picked up a third at the end of a long rally to set up match point at 24-11, flexing her arms down and letting out a yell as her teammates gathered to celebrate.
The senior setter tipped one last ball over the net after an Ashley Fletcher dig to seal the match for the Wildcats.
“Our team has been working on confidence throughout the season,” Halalilo said. “So seeing that confidence rise on our third set, knowing that we trust each other, we trust that point by point, we’re going to help build on. Even if it’s a long point to get, we’re still going to accomplish and push through. So I think our confidence is what really built up in the third set.”
Halalilo led with 30 assists, six blocks, three kills and two aces. Ashley Fletcher added 13 kills and five digs, and junior Julia Navaluna had 15 digs and two assists for Archbishop Murphy.
The match started out in the Wildcats’ favor when two Warrior errors helped the visitors take a 3-0 lead in the first set. Edmonds-Woodway senior Calla Camp responded with two kills, but Halalilo scored with two setter dumps and posted a double-block with Cohen amid a stretch that put the lead at 8-6. Archbishop Murphy extended it to 13-8, but back-to-back kills from Camp and junior Eva Belova trimmed it to 13-10.
A Belova ace to make it a 16-13 deficit kept the Warriors in striking distance, but the Wildcats went on a seven-point run to stretch the lead to 23-13. A Halalilo ace and an overshot attack from Edmonds-Woodway led coach Bart Foley to call timeout at 19-13. Halalilo assisted three straight kills from seniors Sarah Langowski, Blythe Decker and Ashley Fletcher out of the break, respectively, prompting another timeout. Decker scored once again when play resumed before a block from Warriors junior Sydney Hernandez ended the run.
A kill from Sarah Fletcher made it 24-14, and Ashley Fletcher ended the first set at 25-16 after two more Edmonds-Woodway points.
“I feel like once we get one really good kill, then our energy builds up,” Ashley Fletcher said. “We still try and go for that aggression each point.”
The Warriors came out strong in the second set, taking a 5-0 lead after an ace from senior Makayla Martin and a block from Camp, but kills from Langowski and Cohen as well as two aces from Ashley Fletcher helped whittle the deficit to 7-6. Langowski tied it 9-9, and Halalilo put Archbishop Murphy in the lead with an ace. After five more ties and two more lead changes, errors from Edmonds-Woodway started to separate the two sides. The Warriors sent attacks beyond the back line, out to the side and into the net, in that order, amid a four-point Wildcat run that put the visitors ahead 20-16.
Three consecutive aces from junior Mia Abellera Esperanza made it 24-17, and Decker later clinched the 25-20 set victory with a kill. Edmonds-Woodway held a slim 14-12 lead at one point, but two more errors allowed Archbishop Murphy to claw back ahead.
Of the 12 players on the Warriors’ roster, eight are new to varsity this season. Despite the expected growing pains, Edmonds-Woodway is second in Wesco South. For a program that has not qualified for the state tournament since 2014, Foley hopes games like Thursday’s will prepare the team for what it will take to get over the hump.
“We can play well in spurts, and then we can really kind of have a lot of self-inflicted errors, and we saw a lot of that tonight,” Foley said. “I’m not taking anything away from Archbishop (Murphy). I thought they kept the pressure on us. They played relatively mistake-free tonight, which was kind of the opposite of what happened at their place. So it’s just getting that experience and proving to the girls that these pressure situations might crack you a little bit, but they’re not going to break you, and they just need to go through stuff like that in order to be able to do it when it really matters.”
Belova led the Warriors with six kills, and Camp added five. Hansen contributed nine digs and two aces, and Hernandez made eight digs of her own.
After Edmonds-Woodway let the toss-up second set slip away, the Wildcats did not make the third set a contest. With the league title locked up and one more regular season matchup remaining, the team’s attention is shifting toward the District 1 2A Tournament, which begins on Oct. 31.
The seniors carry plenty of postseason experience, as the program placed fourth at state in 2024 and sixth last season after battling through a district consolation gauntlet that ended with a District 1/5 Crossover matchup with Prosser to determine the final spot.
“It’ll definitely help us with experience feeling that grit in those moments,” Halalilo said. “Those tough moments where we have to push and we know that the other team’s going to want it even more. So I think that just having that experience from last season is going to really help us know what to expect looking forward.”
