Volleyball, soccer teams to watch this season

Rice and Mya VanderYacht, who will patrol the interior of the court.

It is going to be hard to slow down the Lions offense and they are poised for another successful year. Not to mention they have reigning NWC coach of the year, Chris Elsner at the helm.

Lynden Christian e Lyncs were excellent last season, going 21-4 overall and 12-3 in the NWC. LC defeated Meridian in the 1A district championship game to advance to the state tournament. In the state tournament, the Lyncs advanced to the semi- nals where they fell to Chelan who went undefeated and later won the 1A state title.

e Lyncs moved into the consolation nal, where they took down Cascade e Lyncs are losing Reganne Arnold and Avery Lennsen, who were two of their most productive players. Kenadi Korthuis, Sydney Faber and So a Rader also graduated leaving spots in their defense.

Christian to claim third place.

LC will be relying on some of their upcoming seniors like Tabitha and Addison DeJong, along with junior Malia Johnson, to man the outside hitter position.

LC will likely be battling with Nooksack Valley for the top spot in the NWC this upcoming season.

Nooksack Valley e Pioneers came on strong at the end of the 2022 season to secure a See Preview on B3

Nathan Schumock

Sports Editor

WHATCOM COUN- is upcoming season is poised to be a good one with the prestigious teams reloading and getting ready to make their runs to state.

TY — With the summer dwindling quickly and the fall season coming upon us, I wanted to point out a few of the volleyball and soccer teams in the area before the season begins.

Volleyball

During the 2022 volleyball season, there were four teams that advanced to the state tournament; Nooksack Valley, Lynden Christian (1A), Lynden

SUMMER BASEBALL

(2A) and Ferndale (3A). is season could be a similar story.

Lynden e Lions are coming o a 2022 season that saw them win the 2A Northwest Conference district championship over Burlington-Edison. Lynden went 20-3 overall and 14-2 in the conference to lead them to the title. e Lions came into the 2A state tournament as the No. 1 seed but suffered an early secondround loss to Pullman that knocked them into the consolation bracket. Lynden salvaged the tournament, nishing fth after winning the next two games over Ellensburg and Washington. is season the Li- ons are only losing four of their seniors from the 2022 season; Lucy White, Joslyn Sipma, Kayla DeJong and Mikiya Nyho . Sipma and DeJong will leave shoes to ll in the middle, but it should not be too di cult for the Lions to replicate their production.

Lynden is bringing back both of their big hitters on the outside; Haylee Koetje and Ashley Shumate. ose two were one of the best outside duos you could nd in the NWC. Shumate made the all-state rst team and NWC rst team, while Koetjee was voted to the NWC second team.

Additionally, they will be bringing back Grace