WASILLA — Palmer head coach Steve Reynolds has been leading the Moose on to the court for 10 years, and he can’t remember a season in which the three Mat-Su Valley teams have been so close.
The squads — Colony, Palmer and Wasilla — are separated by only two matches in the region standings. And each Valley program is playing .500 volleyball against their respective region foes.
  
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“I really think there’s probably six teams that could pull it off, four that are front-runners,” Reynolds said after the tournament bracket was released Monday morning. “The tourney is a whole new season. Anything can happen.”
Colony enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed from the North Division, with its 7-3 conference mark. Palmer is the second seed at 6-4, and Wasilla is ranked third at 5-5. Kodiak is the North’s fourth seed at 4-6.
“In the North, lots of people have been good throughout the year,” Reynolds said. “Usually one team is down a little.”
In the South, Soldotna, the conference’s lone unbeaten team, is a top seed with a 10-0 mark. Throw in second-seeded Skyview (5-5), and there’s a handful of teams with a legitimate chance of leaving the three-day tourney as conference champs.
“It’s whoever really wants it,” Wasilla head coach Claudia Farias-Pinard said. “Who wants to win the most will bring home the title, because most of the teams have equally valuable players.”
Palmer opens with Kenai, the South’s No. 3 seed, in the first match of the tourney, Thursday at 1 p.m. at Wasilla High.
The Moose, who are led by captains Nicole Cherrier and Brittany Arlow, swept Kenai during the regular season. Reynolds said the key for the Moose has simply been putting all the pieces together.
“We’ve been working on coming together as a team,” Reynolds said. “Starting to play together as a team.”
Reynolds thoughts are similar to those of Colony head coach Amy Carter, who will watch as the top-seeded Knights hit the court against fourth-seeded Homer (1-9) at 5 p.m. on Thursday.
Colony, the defending conference champions, graduated a boat-load of talent from that title-winning squad. The Knights have spent the 2009 season using their new talent to build around senior captains Sierra Hodgson and Siobhan Johanson. And Carter is seeing the improvements.
“Every game they are doing something better,” Carter said after Colony closed its regular season conference schedule with a win over Kodiak. “Our defense is getting better. We’re playing better as a team.”
Wasilla, the third seed from the North, will open with second-seeded Skyview Thursday at 7 p.m., the final match of the first day of the tournament. The Warriors edged Skyview in a five-game thriller earlier in the season, and Farias-Pinard said she is expecting another challenging match.
“I expect another tough one,” Farias-Pinard said.
Wasilla started the season with a pair of losses to Kodiak at Kodiak High School, but followed with a string of wins that included victories over Skyview, Palmer and Colony. Farias-Pinard said her team has the potential to do very well, as long as they play to the level they’re capable of.
“If they want it, and be aggressive,” Farias-Pinard said.
Soldotna and Kodiak also meet Thursday at 3 p.m.
The three-day tourney continues on Friday with semifinals at 5 and 7 p.m. The conference championship is scheduled for Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
The top three teams in the tourney earn an automatic berth to the ASAA/First National Bank 4A State Championships, which start Nov. 12 at West Anchorage High School.
Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.
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