Colony senior middle hitter helps Knights sweep Kenai

Colony senior middle hitter helps Knights sweep KenaiKENAI — Colony middle hitter Allie Grazulis had 26 kills in a sweep of Kenai Central on Saturday in Northern Lights Conference volleyball action in Kenai.

“If you take (Grazulis) out of the mix, Colony would be a completely different team,” Kenai Central coach Stacia Rustad said after her squad fell to 0-4 in the NLC.

Colony improved to 8-0 overall and 4-0 in the NLC with the 25-23, 25-14, 25-12 victory.

Although the two teams are at opposite ends of the spectrum with their records, the Kardinals served notice in the first game that the match would not be a walk in the park.

“Kenai played incredible defense,” Colony coach Amy Carter said. “They picked up a lot.”

The Kardinals also managed to find some openings in the Colony defense, which had been stifling in a Friday sweep of Soldotna.

Kenai outside hitter Hannah Delaney did most of the damage in the first game, racking up five kills and two blocks en route to 10 kills for the match. Lieren Flanagan also provided a threat on the outside, notching three kills in the match.

“Their outside hitters both did a good job of hitting,” Carter said. “They both hit the ball hard.”

The Kardinals took a 21-19 lead in the first game on a kill by Delaney.

Delaney then missed on two hits before coming back with a kill for a 22-21 lead.

Grazulis then connected on two kills and Kenai had a hitting error as the Knights went up 24-22. Kenai cut the cap to one on a Colony hitting error, but April Bleicher ended the game on a hard serve that Kenai could not handle.

While Kenai was never able to adjust to Grazulis, Colony figured out in the second and third games how to slow down Kenai’s attack from the outside.

“We started moving our block more to the outside,” Grazulis said. “In the back row, we started covering the line because that’s where they were going most of the time.”

Grazulis gave credit to the rest of her team for putting her in a position to succeed, especially in the second and third games.

“We just really focused on all of our fundamentals,” Grazulis said. “When we’re getting good passes and good sets, it makes it easy for me to hit.”

Grazulis made it look easy against a Kenai defense that Rustad said played very well. But without a consistent offense, defense only goes so far.

Although Colony thoroughly controlled the second and third games, Rustad did see some positives. Like in the second game, when Kenai trailed 21-7, yet ran off six straight points.

“We kept playing hard,” Rustad said. “We didn’t give up. We’re a team through good times and through bad times.”

Kara Larson added eight kills for Colony, while Jackie Hamann had 31 digs and Sierra Hodgson had 17 digs. Siobhan Johansen had 26 assists.

For Kenai, Kristi Louthan had three kills and Mariah Huhndorf had 20 assists.

Palmer 3, Kenai 1

KENAI — On Friday, Palmer notched a 25-20, 25-18, 19-25, 25-17 Northern Lights Conference victory at Kenai.