Knights advance to the finals

ANCHORAGE - Colony used a dramatic 19-17 win over DImond in the fifth and final game of the ASAA/First National Bank Alaska State Volleyball tournament semifinals to move into Saturday's championship match.

Hannah Curtis led Colony with 26 kills, while Allie Grazulis added 20.

The Knights overcame an 11-7 deficit in the final game to earn the first of four match points on the night, but Dimond held strong, even getting a match point of its own at 17-16. But a clutch dig by Kristen Coan kept Colony in the match, and the Knights got kills from Siobhan Johansen and Grazulis to set up the fourth and final match point of the game.

Dimond finally blinked when Lauren Fulton spiked the ball into the net, giving Colony a dramatic victory and setting off a wild celebration at the center of the West High School gym.

"It feels great," Grazulis said after celebrating with her teammates.

The Knights now face South Anchorage, the two-time defending state champions, in the final match of the season. South advanced with a three-game sweep over Eagle RIver.

MOOSE TO PLAY FOR FOURTH PLACE

In Friday's consolation semifinals, Palmer defeated Wasilla in five games (28-26, 22-25, 22-25, 25-21, 15-11) to move into Saturday's fourth-place match against Juneau-Douglas. Geneva Ratcliff led Palmer with 13 kills as the Moose downed their cross-Valley rival for the fourth time this season.

KNIGHTS ADVANCE TO SEMIFINALS

ANCHORAGE — Leading two games to one in their first-round ASAA/First National Bank Alaska Volleyball Championship contest against West Valley at West Anchorage High School, the Colony Knights were on the verge of letting the Wolfpack back into the match.

After holding a big lead throughout the fourth game, the Knights had allowed West Valley to claw back to within a single point. With her team clinging to a 21-20 lead, Colony coach Amy Carter called timeout.

“Basically I just told them to go back to basics,” Carter said.

Coming out of the timeout, Colony middle hitter Hannah Curtis took a perfect set from senior setter Desi Diselrod and hammered home a kill.

And another.

And another.

And one more for good measure.

Four straight Curtis kills later — three off Diselrod sets — and the Knights had a 25-20 win and a berth in today's semifinals.

“They play really well together,” Carter said in perhaps the understatement of the day.

Curtis and Diselrod have been key to Colony's success this season, and Thursday's match was textbook Knights.

Curtis finished with a match-high 23 kills and six blocks, while Diselrod had 22 assists as the Knights bounced back from a loss in the Northern Lights Conference tournament finals to Palmer by handing West Valley just its second loss of the season.

“Desi is just an awesome setter,” Curtis, who was named the match MVP, said afterward. “We've been playing together since we were sophomores, and we really enjoy playing together.”

Colony junior libero Jackie Hamann had 11 digs for the Knights, which also got 10 kills and three blocks from junior middle blocker Allie Grazulis.

Cashaana Renfro led West Valley with 10 kills, while Leanna Slater added nine. West Valley's Sammie Wolters was a perfect 18-for-18 from the service line.

Colony's big 3-1 match victory wasn't as easy as the score indicated.

West Valley jumped out to the early lead in the first game, going up 11-4 before a Colony rally pulled the Knights to within a single point at 14-13. But that was as close as Colony would get in the game, and West Valley finished things off with four consecutive points to close out the 25-19 win.

But after that, it was all Colony.

“We weren't playing our game in the first one so we just had to get our minds in the game,” Curtis said.

The Knights bounced back in the second game, a back-and-forth contest that didn't see either team take as much as a three-point lead until Colony went on a 5-1 run to end things at 25-21. Curtis' presence in the middle was key in the second, as the 6-foot-1 senior pounded home seven kills, including the final point of3

the game.

“She kind of ate us up,” West Valley head coach Matt Steffes said.

Curtis' hot play continued into the third game, as she put home four more kills during an 11-1 Colony run to start the game. The big run seemed to stun West Valley, which never could get back into the game. Senior outside hitter Kristen Coan served the final six points of the game, including two aces, as the Knights stormed to a 25-7 rout.

Steffes said his team may have been hurt by the fact that the Mid-Alaska Conference champion Wolfpack didn't play as difficult of teams during the regular season as Colony saw night in and night out in the NLC.

“Not playing the level of competition I think is an uphill battle every time we come to state,” Steffes said.

Also hurting the Wolfpack was the fact that the Mid-Alaska didn't stage a conference tournament this season, and had only played two matches in the past three weeks. Colony, meanwhile, was coming off a tough loss and had much to prove after their NLC loss last week.

“We were definitely a little bummed out after losing in regions,” Curtis said.

Curtis said the win over West Valley proved that the Knights are capable of playing with any team in the state.

“It gives us a lot of confidence,” she said.

Colony improved to 15-3 on the season with the win. The Knights will face Dimond today at 3:45 p.m. with a berth in the state finals on the line.

The Lynx stormed back from a 2-0 defecit Thursday against Juneau-Douglas, winning three straight games to close out the Crimson Bears in the most exciting match of the tournament's opening

|day.

A win over Dimond would put Colony into the title game for the first time since the Knights finished second during the 2003-04 season. Colony's best run at state came in 1998-99, when the Knights defeated Service for the program's first state title.

See www.frontiersman.com for continued updates, and the Sunday edition of the Frontiersman for full coverage of the event.

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth@frontiersman.com