Valley volleyball teams split during road trip to Kenai Peninsula

SOLDOTNA — The Wasilla Warriors, Colony Knights and Palmer Moose each split a pair of matches during road trips to the Kenai Peninsula last week.

Wasilla spoiled Soldotna’s chances of sweeping three home matches against Valley schools. The Stars came within two points of sweeping the weekend series against the Valley teams in the Northern Lights Conference, coming up short 3-2 Saturday against the Warriors with scores of 23-25, 25-21, 16-25, 25-19 and 13-15.

After beating Palmer 3-1 Thursday, Soldotna swept Colony 3-0 Friday before facing Wasilla Saturday.

“I think fatigue just became a bit of a factor,” Soldotna head coach Kupferschmid told the Peninsula Clarion. “But I am so proud of them, they are fighters, and we didn’t always have the best execution but the hustle and effort was there.”

Kupferschmid said the fifth set came down to staking out an early lead, something that Wasilla was able to do first.

“We got in a hole early but we managed to claw back,” Kupferschid said. “Skylar sent them a great serve, but they passed the kill to their center and that was it.”

The Kenai Kardinals earned their first win Friday, edging Wasilla a 3-2 (25-23, 25-23, 19-25, 21-25, 15-10).

After Kenai rode early leads to victories in the first two games, Wasilla coach Josie Cannon did some successful tinkering with her personnel.

What particularly worked was putting outside hitters Amber Sizemore, who had 20 kills, and Andraia Bella together.

Wasilla won two games to attempt the tough process of digging from an 0-2 hole.

“It’s very hard to get out of that hole,” Cannon said. “You have to be perfect the rest of the match.

“We were perfect in three and four, but not in five.”

Harding said the problems for the Kards in the third and fourth games were more with the head than with the hands.

“Volleyball is just a mind game,” she said. “You have to have composure and find your way out of it.”

In Game 5, Kenai’s Sierra Hall, who had three kills, served out two points and Abby Beck, who had 13 assists, four kills and an ace, served out three points as the Kards bolted to a 6-2 lead.

Wasilla had a hard time generating momentum after that. With the score 9-4, the Warriors put together a marathon point where they somehow scraped up a ball inches from the floor, but Alli Steinbeck put the Kards up 10-4 with a kill.

At that point, the Kenai football team filed in after practice and made the gym even louder in favor of Kenai.

“That’s always a thing when we come to Kenai,” Cannon said. “They have very loud fans.”

Harding scored the last two points for the Kards with a kill.

Jamie Bagley had 32 digs for Kenai, while Amber Walters had eight assists and Emily Koziczkowski had two kills.

For Wasilla, Ashlyn Dorn had seven kills, Brooke Queripal had six kills, Peyton Mobley had 42 assists and four aces, and Courtney Anthoney had five aces.

The Colony Knights swept Kenai 3-0 last Thursday.

Sophie Hall led the Knights with 12 kills, three aces and five blocks. Ashley Turcotte added 11 kills and 10 aces. Mackenzie Everett added 34 assists, two aces and nine digs.

Soldotna swept the Knights 3-0 (25-21, 25-12, 25-14) on Friday.

Hall finished with four kills, while Turcotte added three kills and nine digs.

Soldotna edged Palmer 3-1 last Thursday. Leiah Reichel led the Moose with 13 kills, and Mariah McNamara collected 11 digs.

See frontiersman.com/sports for more on the Palmer matches.

Palmer is 2-2 in NLC play. Wasilla improved to 1-3. Colony is 2-4.

Palmer and Wasilla meet tonight at Wasilla High School. The varsity match starts at 6:30 p.m.