Prep volleyball: Warriors split with Kards, Stars

KENAI — Kenai Central volleyball coach Jason Diorec isn’t too worried, yet.

On Friday, the host Kardinals dropped a Northern Lights Conference match to Wasilla in four games to drop to 0-4 in the conference. The Warriors improved to 2-3 in the league and 3-5 overall with the 25-12, 22-25, 25-17 and 25-17 victory.

“What I find is they’re still nervous,” Diorec said of his squad, which has just two seniors on the roster. “It’s basically the experience. I told them they have to be an experienced team quickly. We’re almost at the halfway point of our season.”

Diorec said he’s not worried about his team because the squad shows flashes of winning volleyball. The problem comes when inexperience rears its head in the form of overplaying and dwelling on mistakes.

Kenai’s inexperience was perfect prey for a Warriors squad that was having trouble finishing off opponents. Wasilla coach Anna Simmons said her squad took a step forward in that department on Friday.

“We did a good job finishing,” Simmons said. “We’d been in the lead, but we hadn’t been finishing.”

The Warriors dominated the first game. When Jenna Johnson had three service points to make the score 19-9, that game was all but over.

The Kardinals rebounded quickly in the second game, showing the type of play that has kept Diorec from pushing the panic button. Sophomore Mariah Huhndorf had three straight service points and Kenai started with a 4-0 lead. Wasilla came back to tie the game at 10. Then, keyed by four service points and two aces from Kelsie Cline, the Warriors grabbed a 17-12 advantage.

“We were pretty consistent with our serving,” Simmons said. “We came up with eight aces. That’s the most we’ve had this year.”

Wasilla held a 22-19 lead until Huhndorf and sophomore Taylor Matson took over. Matson gave Huhndorf the serve with a kill, then Huhndorf served out the last five points of the match. Matson had kills on three of those five service points.

It was the only time in the match Kenai had a run of five or more service points. Wasilla had three such runs. Diorec said the disparity shows inexperience.

“With inexperience and mistakes, players hang onto those mistakes a little too long,” Diorec said. “They hang on a little longer than they should.”

Wasilla didn’t dwell on losing the second game. Ashlen Welch got the momentum back when she opened the third game with eight straight service points. The Kards were not able to recover from that onslaught. The fourth game featured a similar burst, with Stephanie Bair serving for six straight points to open up an 18-10 lead.

Simmons said her squad did not pass particularly well, and that kept the Warriors from using some quick plays on offense they had practicing. Wasilla made up for the passing with hustle.

“We were going all over the place for the ball,” Simmons said. “We were going to the bleachers and we were going all the way back to the stage.”

Diorec was relatively happy with his squad’s defense, but said the offense, understandably, is not clicking yet.

“We’ve been working on hitting hard,” he said. “We work on defense the first half of the season. We’re on offense now. We have to learn to adjust to the way the opponent is defending us.”

Senior Kyla Steward is Kenai’s most experienced player, and it showed. She had 22 kills, 11 points on serve and 20 digs. Hannah Delaney had 12 kills, Matson had 11 kills, Huhndorf had 15 points on serve and Ronni Sounart had 11 points on serve. Diorec also said Lierin Flanagan had a solid all-around match.

For Wasilla, Johnson had 11 kills and Welch added seven kills. Bair had 12 assists. Simmons also said she used some new players — mainly Cline and Stephanie Flores — to put up blocks. The coach said the new blockers did well.

Soldotna 3, Wasilla 2

SOLDOTNA — On Saturday the Soldotna Stars grabbed a 3-2 (21-25, 25-16, 25-15, 17-25, 15-10) win over the Wasilla Warriors.

Soldotna head coach Bruce King said has seen a maturity in the team since a Tuesday victory in Homer.

“It was a tough, tight match even though it was only three games,” King said. “I started to see the confidence level grow in the team. There’s no sense of panic anymore.

“I keep forgetting a lot of these players don’t have a lot of experience.”

The latest moment that made King forget came in the fifth game against the Warriors, when Paige Blackburn rotated out with the Stars holding a 9-7 lead.

Would SoHi’s sophomores and juniors crack?

Wasilla’s Ashlen Welch slammed a kill, but sophomore Megan Hardy answered with a kill for a 10-8 lead. A hitting error by Wasilla and a tough serve by sophomore Chelsea Wilbanks pushed the lead to 12-8. Welch then had a kill and block kill sandwiched around a Wasilla hitting error for a 13-10 game.

Then came a long rally, with the tension increasing as every attack over the net was dug up. SoHi’s juniors and seniors won the battle when the rally ended after a bad bump by Wasilla. Blackburn then returned and finished off Wasilla with a block kill.

King and Wasilla coach Anna Simmons, whose team is now 2-4 in the league and 3-6 overall, said the match came down to passing.

“We have a lot of strong hitters,” Simmons said. “The difference is passing. When we are able to pass, we are able to dominate in stretches with our strong middle and outside hitters.

“We need more consistent passing and serve-receive.”

In the first game, Wasilla’s passing was on. The Warriors also continued a trend of strong, aggressive serving. Wasilla didn’t miss a serve in the first game. The Warriors also had 14 aces in the match, a season high.

In the second game, Wasilla’s passing, particularly on serve-receive, became shaky.

“We did a great job of serving and taking advantage of them on serve-receive,” King said. “They took it to us a little bit on their serve, too.”

The combination of the serve of junior April Heffner and Blackburn in the front row often gave Soldotna a big advantage. In the second game, Heffner had 10 straight service points, with Blackburn mixing in three kills, to give the Stars an 11-3 edge. In the third game, Heffner had five straight points, with Blackburn mixing in two kills, as the Stars took a 7-1 lead.

King said his first three servers of each game understand the importance of taking advantage of Blackburn’s time in the front row.

“We’ve been talking to the first three servers,” King said. “They understand tough, accurate serving is important. We want Paige in the front row for as long as possible.”

In the fourth game, it was the Stars who hit a rough stretch in serve-receive, courtesy of Jenna Johnson. Johnson had five straight service points, including two aces, to give Wasilla a 20-13 lead.

“The games we lost were because of ball control,” King said. “It all starts in the back row.”

For Wasilla, Johnson had nine kills and Alana Wright had eight kills. Stephanie Bair had 17 assists, and Simmons said backup setter Alex Firestack also had a solid match.

Blackburn had 22 kills and seven blocks. King said two young players that have been coming on strong are Heffner and sophomore Mariah Hamilton. Heffner had 10 digs, five kills and three aces, while Hamilton had six kills and five blocks. Sophomore Emily Rohloff had 28 assists and eight digs, while junior Jessi Stenga had eight digs.

On Friday, Soldotna had 59 digs as a team, as Stenga had 20, Heffner had 11 and Shana Powell had six. Blackburn had 17 kills and eight blocks, Hamilton had eight kills and five blocks, Heffner had 10 kills and Wilbanks had five kills. Rohloff had 16 assists.