Kodiak scores upset over No. 1 Palmer

KODIAK — In stunning fashion, Kodiak’s volleyball team is headed back to state.

The Bears upset No. 1 seed Palmer 3-1 (25-17, 21-25, 25-22, 25-22) in a Northern Lights Conference Volleyball Tournament quarterfinal match Thursday evening in front of an ear-piercing home crowd in Kodiak to punch its ticket to next week’s 4A state tournament.

“I didn’t know that. I was too nervous to look ahead,” Kodiak coach Amy Willis said. “I wanted them to be focused on doing their absolute best. ... I think if we would have known it would have been more pressure and maybe we would have had a different result.”

This will be Kodiak’s fifth trip to the state tournament and fourth under Willis. The top three teams in the six-team NLC advance to state.

Thursday’s victory comes just two weeks after Kodiak dropped a pair of home matches to Palmer.

After sweeping Wasilla in the first match of the tournament earlier in the day, Kodiak switched its focus to redeeming itself against the Mat-Su Valley school.

“I had a feeling we were going to win,” Hannah Wandersee said. “I was trying to pump everyone up and make them believe it to.”

Wandersee, an all-conference performer from last season, had a monster game with 17 kills and four service aces.

Senior Olivia Bennett added nine kills and four aces, while junior Carissa Cannon tossed in another nine kills. It was her tip-kill in the fourth set that ended the back-and-forth match and sent No. 4 Kodiak (5-6 NLC) into celebration mode.

“At first I was going to hit it hard, and at the last minute I remembered the last time I got blocked, so I just tipped it,” Cannon said. “When it hit the floor, I just turned to the team and screamed. I was so excited.”

Kodiak now slides into tonight’s 5 p.m. semifinal match against Soldotna, with the winner advancing into Saturday’s 2 p.m. championship match. The loser drops to the third-place match Saturday at noon. Soldotna swept Colony 25-18, 25-15, 25-15 in the other quarterfinal match.

With the new double-elimination tournament format, Palmer, the three-time defending NLC champions, can still work its way back to state with a pair of victories today.

The Moose, whose only other conference loss was to Soldotna, plays winless Kenai today at 11 a.m. in a loser-out match, while Colony plays Wasilla in a loser-out match at 1 p.m.

“This is the first year where we still have a chance,” Palmer coach Steve Reynolds said. “It is a long road to come back, but us volleyball players prefer to play a lot of volleyball.”

Reynolds credited Kodiak’s defense and said the Bears played a near flawless match.

“We had a lot of unforced errors and they got us in trouble some, too,” Reynolds said. “The ones that they forced upon us and the ones that we did to ourselves were just too much.”

Behind the serving of Cannon, Kodiak started the match with 12 straight points and hung on the rest of the way to take the first set 25-17.

“The girls wanted to play Palmer better than when they were here. That was our goal,” Willis said. “They were just focused on trying to get the first three points on the board.”

Palmer rebounded to take a four-point victory in the second set.

Kodiak was down 20-17 in the third set and roared back to take the set on the play of Megan Pyles, who had two stuff blocks and two kills in the closing moments.

Palmer led 16-12 in the fourth before Kodiak came back to tie it at 19 on a Wandersee ace. Several plays later, Wandersee tied it again at 22 on a kill, which was followed by a Palmer error and the Cannon kill.

“We knew the biggest thing with us is our energy,” Cannon said. “We tend to get down a lot. We kept the energy up and we talked; we did anything we could.”

Soldotna 3, Colony 0

Kaillee Skjold recorded a match-high 17 kills and two aces to help Soldotna sweep Colony 3-0 (25-18, 25-15, 25-15).

The victory clinches a state berth for No. 2 Soldotna.

Soldotna’s Katelynn Kerkvliet had 13 blocks and 12 digs, while Kaycee Munn chipped in 13 digs and six blocks.

Colony’s Allison Leigh had nine kills and three blocks, while Chelsea Friesen added seven kills.

Kodiak 3, Wasilla 0

Kodiak used a balanced offensive attack to easily dispose of Wasilla 25-14, 25-11, 25-9 in the first match of the tournament.

Wandersee had five kills, five aces and one solo block. Pyles had four kills and two blocks, while Cannon had three kills and 14 digs.

Wasilla was led by Machia Toews’ five kills and 14 digs, while Cassidy Edwards chipped in five kills and Amber Sizemore four kills.

Wasilla never led in the match that was over in less than an hour.

Colony 3, Kenai 0

Allison Leigh powered through a match-high 18 kills and five blocks to help Colony sweep No. 6 Kenai 25-7, 25-8, 25-13 in an opening-round match.

Brooke Nezaticky added six kills, while Maryann Zmuda dished out 18 assists.