BLOCKED

WASILLA — As Wasilla head coach Claudia Farias Pinard stood on the sidelines watching her team during the first two games of the best-of-5 state tourney fourth-place match, she saw something different from her squad.

Farias Pinard didn’t see the club that dominated a regular season that included only one loss. And she saw a team that was more tentative than the squad that finished runner-up in the Northern Lights Conference Championships.

But as the Warriors worked through that second game in into the third, Farias Pinard began to see her team return to form. The Warriors rallied, but Juneau blocked Wasilla’s chance to end the season with a victory, scoring a 3-1 (25-16, 25-23, 22-25, 25-22) win over the Warriors during the ASAA/First National Bank State Volleyball Championships.

“The first two games, it was not a Wasilla game,” Farias Pinard said. “We were just watching, we were panicked.”

Farias Pinard said it could have simply boiled down to confidence.

“It’s not like we were believing ourselves in the beginning,” Farias Pinard said.

But behind the hitting of junior Sariah Tuisaula, senior Aryn Crane and junior Haley Taylor, Wasilla powered its way back into the contest. Juneau needed slim wins of 25-23 in the second game and 25-22 in the decisive Game 4 to finish in fourth place in the tourney and record its best state tournament finish since 2006.

Tuisaula capped a stellar state tournament with 32 kills in the match.

“I think she’s the best game in the tournament,” Farias Pinard said. “Serving, her serve has been on the whole tournament.”

Tuisaula also had seven aces against Juneau.

Crane added 13 kills in the match, despite not playing the fourth game. Crane, who was named Wasilla’s player of the match, left the court in obvious agonizing pain. Farias Pinard said the senior suffered a cracked rib during the West Spiketacular earlier in the season, but has played through the pain and remained in the lineup.

“I’m proud of her, even though being hurt, she worked hard every single day,” Farias Pinard said of Crane.

Crane and Amber Curry are the lone seniors on the squad.

Taylor added a dozen kills for the Warriors.

Farias Pinard also praised the play of her setters, juniors Kayla Bell and Kayla Binggeli, late in the match.

“They started playing their game,” Farias Pinard said.

During Wasilla’s win in the third game, the Tuisaula and Crane-led Warriors consistently refused Juneau’s attempts to end the match in a sweep. Tuisaula used an ace to tie the score at 15 and back-to-back kills to give Wasilla a 20-19 lead.

Those kills came after Crane knocked a hard shot off the Juneau block to cut the Bears’ advantage to a single point. Jolee Fife capped a five-point run with a kill, finding a piece of floor just inside the back line.

Juneau cut Wasilla’s advantage to 22-21, but Tuisaula tipped the ball over the net to give the Warriors the two-point lead. Crane knocked a ball off the top of the net and into the middle of the Juneau defense to give Wasilla the chance to serve for match point.

Taylor capped the game for Wasilla with a solo block.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com. Follow him at Twitter at twitter.com/matsu_sports.