The Oak Harbor High School girls volleyball team placed first in its bracket play at the SunDome Festival in Yakima last weekend.

After finishing second in their pool, the Wildcats moved to bracket play against the seven other second-seed teams and captured the division.

Oak Harbor opened the Festival in pool play and suffered its only loss (25-20, 25-12) to West Valley of Yakima. The Rams went on to win the 32-team tournament.

Oak Harbor split its other two pool matches. The Wildcats fell in the first game to Enumclaw 25-20 then bounced back to win the second 25-14.

The ‘Cats then beat Lakewood 25-17 before dropping the second game 26-24.

Oak Harbor, Enumclaw and Lakewood finished in a three-way tie for second in the pool, but Oak Harbor was awarded the second seed based upon the tournament’s tie breaker.

That put Oak Harbor into bracket play against the second-place teams from the seven other pools.

In the quarterfinals, the Wildcats defeated Eisenhower of Yakima 25-21, 18-25, 15-6.

A 25-13, 25-22 straight set win over Hanford lifted Oak Harbor into the finals against Kennewick.

The Lions took the first game 25-18, but the Wildcats rebounded to win the next two (25-19, 15-3) and grab the bracket championship.

Oak Harbor coach Kerri Molitor said that the setting of Jordan Faralan and overall team defense were the highlights of the championship game. She added, “They played well together and supported each other through the fatigue.”

No statistics were kept during the tournament, according to Molitor.

The Wildcats (2-0) return to regular season play Thursday with the 2010 home opener against Lake Stevens (1-0) at 7 p.m.