Washington’s third-year coach Kelly Slade wanted to open the season against 4-A power J.H. Rose to get a better look at areas her team might need to improve upon and the Rampants obliged as they topped the Pam Pack in three games, 25-17, 25-11, 25-23 on Tuesday.
“We started off the season with a tough team and that’s the exact way I wanted to start off so we can see what we need to work on to get prepared for our conference games,” Slade said.
While the box score shows a three-game sweep, the Pam Pack had its moments on Tuesday and finished strong by taking Rose to the edge in its 25-23 Game 3 defeat.
“I think that our girls did a really good job working together and communicating,” Slade said. “I felt like they played pretty scrappy today and I’m really proud of how hard they worked. They battled.
“… But, I think that we need to just get better at our specific positions and just hit better. We have to get better at switching quicker and getting into our positions quicker and knowing where we’re supposed to be. After playing Rose I can see what parts of our defense we need to tweak and that’s something we can work on in practice.”
Rose, who was also playing in its season opener, struck early behind a stellar front line as it jumped out to an 18-10 lead before winning the first game 25-17.
The strong net play of the Rampants would continue throughout all three games and prove to be too much to overcome for the Pam Pack.
“Rose has a great front line,” Slade said. “They work hard and they’re really good at placing the ball in spots.
“But, I think as the game progressed we got better at reading their hitters and where they wanted to place the ball.”
Led by senior Megan Corey and junior Adriana Tyson, the Pam Pack front line put up a good fight, but once again succumbed to Rose’s size and strength as  fell 25-11 in Game 2.
The Pam Pack stepped up in the third game as it held a 9-7 lead midway through the match. Rose rallied to tie the match at 10. The two teams would find themselves tied four more times, with the last one being 21 all. However, the Rampants went on to outscore Washington 4-2 down the stretch to seal the deal.
“We changed our defense and made some adjustments to their hitting that really helped us,” Slade said. “We just started getting into the right places so we were able to make the plays that we needed to make to give us the opportunity to make some hits and score some points.”
The Pam Pack will be back in action today when it plays at D.H. Conley.