A year ago, a good portion of the Cascade boys volleyball team was still learning the game when the Cougars finished third in the 4A state tournament.
Now in 2026 with a little more experience, the Cougars are 8-2 overall and 7-0 in 4A/3A/2A/1A Special District 3 following a 3-1 win over Western Christian/Amity on April 23.
Last year was the athletic talent taking over for Cascade, and this year has been honing in on the technical side to become even better players.
“I think this team so far has really grown into their positions, most of them are returners,” Cascade head coach Mollie Herron said. “It’s nice having them come in with a lot of that knowledge from last year of actually how to play and now we can kind of focus on getting better this year rather than teach the rules of volleyball.”
Ten players make up the roster for the Cougars, and they are all juniors and sophomores, so 2026 won’t be the last year of improving for them either.
Cascade, ranked No. 1 in the OSAA rankings, has only lost to No. 2 Westside Christian 3-1 and 6A/5A squad Grants Pass 2-1 at the South Salem tournament. It has big league wins over Willamette Valley Christian and Crosshill Christian that both came via a 3-1 decision.
Leading the way are players in the normal lead spots for volleyball, starting with sophomore libero Jackson McNichols.
Herron described how McNichols is one of the players who found a love for the sport last year and has since dedicated more and more time to getting better. And it’s shown halfway through the season with the kind of digs and passes the sophomore can get up.
“You can see it in the way that he plays, just about every serve is getting up with Jackson, we are getting a touch on everything,” Herron said. “He’s really taken charge of the defense and moving the players that are next to him on the court around the court and being a leader in our back row.”
Junior Lance Knieriemen has held down the setter position for the Cougars and is learning to be more of an attacker on top of his passing duties.
Herron described how a number of the players are involved with multiple spring sports, so Cascade will run a 5-1 at times with Knieriemen leading the way, other times 6-2 when the bodies are available.
Either way, Knieriemen has been an important all-around piece for the top-ranked Cougars.
And bringing it all home is junior Zeben McCloud, who plays club and brings a bit more experience to the squad.
McCloud is a dangerous option at the middle blocker position where he’s not only putting up difficult walls on defense, but slamming home kills in the offensive game.
“We call him our big, scary middle,” Herron said. “We want him to just start swinging right away, get other teams scared right as the team starts. And he’s been a huge blocker for us.”
Last year, the Cougars may have taken third at state, but they entered the final tournament of the year at 6-11 overall. They took down Philomath 3-1 in the quarterfinals, lost to Crook County 3-0 in the semifinals and then beat Molalla 3-0 in the third place match.
Now in the fourth year of having a program, Cascade has shown real strides of becoming a consistent threat in the newly-sanctioned OSAA sport with the focus being on development now rather than the rules of the game.
Cascade was the only 4A or lower team to compete in the tournament hosted by South Salem and held their own against a top 6A/5A team in Summit and came away with a win over Gresham.
“Our goal this year is to speed things up and keep things running at our pace,” Herron said. “We’ve been playing a couple teams who are either in their first year or in their second year and it’s really easy to change your level of play based on your opponent.
“We want to keep playing up to our best. Our goal is if we play someone who’s better, we are able to play up and match that.”
Having been so close to that title a year ago, the Cougars know what the ultimate goal is come the end of May when the state tournament begins.
The first round begins May 20 with the quarterfinals scheduled for May 23. The semifinals and championship will be May 29-30 at West Salem High School.
The regular season wins are nice, but Herron and the team know what they want to do come May.
“I think we are coming out ready to swing and play hard regardless of who our opponent is,” Herron said. “We’re a team that basically starts every practice saying, ‘We’re training for state, we’re not training for our next opponent.’ We’re training to get a trophy at that tournament at the end of the year.”
Bracketology
Let’s take a look at what the state tournament fields would look like if the season were to end today.
Both 6A/5A and 4A/3A/2A/1A are going with a 14-team state tournament bracket in the sport’s inaugural season sanctioned by the OSAA.
In 6A/5A, four teams automatically qualify for state from Special District 1 and 3 while three teams make it from SD 2 and 4 to make up the field.
For 4A/3A/2A/1A, three teams a piece make it from SD 1, 2 and 3 and SD 4 will send five teams into the bracket.
Ties were broken using head-to-head results. If that didn’t break the tie, OSAA ranking was used.
6A/5A
Automatic qualifiers
SD1 (4): Central Catholic, Reynolds, La Salle Prep, Hood River Valley
SD2 (3): Sherwood, Century, Wilsonville
SD3 (4): South Salem, Silverton, McKay, North Salem
SD4 (3): Summit, Crook County, Grants Pass
The bracket
No. 1 Central Catholic, bye
No. 9 La Salle Prep at No. 8 Grants Pass
No. 12 North Salem at No. 5 Crook County
No. 14 Hood River Valley at No. 4 South Salem
No. 13 Wilsonville at No. 3 Silverton
No. 11 Century at No. 6 Reynolds
No. 10 McKay at No. 7 Summit
No. 2 Sherwood, bye
4A/3A/2A/1A
Automatic qualifiers
SD1 (3): Portland Adventist, Damascus Christian, Central Christian
SD2 (3): Westside Christian, Horizon Christian (Tualatin), Yamhill-Carlton
SD3 (3): Cascade, Crosshill Christian, Willamette Valley Christian
SD4 (5): Junction City, North Bend, Creswell/Pleasant Hill, Cottage Grove, Rogue Valley Adventist
The bracket
No. 1 Cascade, bye
No. 9 Damascus Christian at No. 8 North Bend
No. 12 Rogue Valley Adventist at No. 5 Crosshill Christian
No. 14 Yamhill-Carlton at No. 4 Junction City
No. 13 Horizon Christian, Tualatin at No. 3 Portland Adventist
No. 11 Cottage Grove at No. 6 Willamette Valley Christian
No. 10 Creswell/Pleasant Hill at No. 7 Central Christian
No. 2 Westside Christian, bye
austinw@osaa.org
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