Defending state champion Warriors earn early-season sweep over South

The Wasilla Warriors entered the season as the defending 4A state champions. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the Warriors get to pick up in 2024 right where they left off in 2023.

“It’s not like where we are starting off where we finished,” Wasilla head coach Katie Oxspring said after the Warriors opened their regular season of match play with a 3-0 sweep over South Anchorage Friday afternoon at Wasilla High School. “It’s a brand new team. It’s reminding me a little bit of the beginning season of last year.”

South was Wasilla’s first opponent in a best-of-5 match of the season.

“It was a nice way to start, just varsity against a really tough opponent,” Oxspring said.

The Warriors finished second overall in the historically tough Chugiak Invitational late last month. Wasilla is wearing the target this year as the defending champs, and Oxspring said she feels her players have felt some of that pressure. The positive side to taking a couple of losses in a setting like the Chugiak Invite, Oxspring said, is the opportunity to work through some of the early-season growing pains.

Wasilla’s opening stretch of the regular season also includes Valley rival Colony, a two-day conference series in Kodiak and a match against East Anchorage, the team Wasilla beat last season to earn the program’s first state title in two decades.

“Everyone’s going to be a good match,” Oxspring said. “Because everything is a good learning experience for us. It’s an opportunity to try new things, so we can fine-tune all of those little things.”

The Warriors return a strong senior class which includes three players who were named to the all-state tournament team last year, middle hitter Layla Hays, outside hitter Ali Devine and setter Mylee Anderson. A fourth Warrior, Rylee Pitney, was also named all-state tourney last year, but has made the jump to college volleyball. Oxspring said senior Kaitlyn Zweifel and junior Mia Caldwell will work to help fill the void left by Pitney in the middle.

Oxspring said senior Violet Schachle, on the right side, has stepped up tremendously to help replace two key members of the 2023 team also lost to graduation.

“She’s crushing it in the front row and doing really great in the back row,” Oxspring said.

Contact Frontiersman managing editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.