The Siuslaw Vikings volleyball team met a number of milestones before their season was cut short Saturday with a playoff loss to the Tillamook Cheesemakers.

The Vikings were co-Far West League champions, the league's No. 1 seed after a dominating playoff win against Douglas, and they were seeded No. 8 in the state playoffs.

"We exceeded expectations, by leaps and bounds," Siuslaw first-year coach Jon Hornung said. "We fought hard, all season. That's really all that we can ask of them."

Saturday, the Cheesemakers played unwelcome guests at Glenn Butler Court, sweeping the Vikings 3-0 to move to the quarterfinals of the Oregon School Activities Association Class 4A playoffs.

Tillamook won by scores of 25-18, 25-23, 25-18, setting up a showdown with top-ranked Valley Catholic next Friday at Forest Grove High School. Valley Catholic, Banks and Tillamook were 1-2-3 in the Cowapa League and Nos. 1, 3 and 5 in the final OSAA 4A rankings.

"Even in this match, we went down fighting," Hornung said. "Tillamook played really well. We've never gone up against a team with that many weapons, and who played that quickly. It kind of knocked us off our game.

"They were hitting to gaps, and hitting between blocks, and they were just hitting to places we weren't. They were an overall solid team that took it to us."

Once again the Vikings' middle blockers had solid games, with senior Elyssa Rose credited with 4 blocks and 3 kills and sophomore Makenzie York 3 blocks and 4 kills. Freshman outside hitter Mia Collins had 2 kills and 2 blocks.

Sophomore Jordan Long had 3 aces, senior Brittany Long 2 aces and York 1 ace.

For the Cheesemakers, senior middle blocker Jordan Zweifel had 11 kills, junior outside hitter Makayla Hopkes 9 kills and sophomore middle blocker Makinley Johnson 6 kills.

Tillamook will lose only two seniors for next season, Zweifel and middle blocker Lexie Zuercher.

"We didn't have much information on Siuslaw going in," Tillamook coach Meagan Maroney said. "We heard they had good middles and blockers. We prepared for that, and planned for that."

Siuslaw started off strong, bolting to an 8-2 lead in set 1. Tillamook rallied to tie at 10-10. Siuslaw eased to an 18-16 lead, but the Cheesemakers rode Zweifel's serve for the last nine points to win 25-18.

Set 2 was closer, partially because of Cheesemakers serving woes. Tillamook had 8 service errors while squeaking out a 25-23 win.

Set 3 was a carbon copy of the first set, with the Vikings racing to leads of 8-4 and 12-7. Tillamook first pulled ahead at 14-13. Siuslaw tied the set at 16-16, but the Cheesemakers went on a 9-2 run to lock up the match.

The Vikings now look to next year, when Siuslaw will have only two seniors, libero Maci Wells and outside hitter Emma Collins.

"Having Maci and Emma back will be awesome," Hornung said. "I think they're going to be really good leaders.

"And (this year's) sophomore class (of York, Jordan Long, Sami Scheer, McKenzie Colton and Alyssa Richards) is so strong."

There's also sophomore-to-be Mia Collins, a major contributor as a freshman.

"Mia is the X-factor," Hornung said. "It's hard to prepare for someone that big who can hit and block and scramble on defense."

And they all will have learned at the school of hard knocks, aka Tillamook.

"I told Maci to remember this feeling," Hornung said of the stinging loss. "During the season, we need to push hard, all the time.

"We don't want to feel this way next year. We don't want to feel this way again."