Warriors sweep Stars

SOLDOTNA — Volleyball is a game of momentum, and sometimes it comes in waves, ups and downs, much like a ride on a roller coaster.

The Wasilla Warriors have a team goal this season. More ups. Fewer downs. Not so much of a roller-coaster ride.

Wasilla head coach Josie Cannon saw her team embrace that concept as the Warriors quickly shut the door on Soldotna, scoring a 3-0 (25-23, 25-17, 25-16) victory Thursday night at Wasilla High School.

“A team goal is keep the roller-coaster (play) to a minimum,” Cannon said. “(Tonight) we were able to shut them down.”

Cannon said she felt overall experience helped her team open its Northern Lights Conference schedule with the win.

“Most of my starting group are seniors. They’ve been playing together since freshman year,” Cannon said.

Wasilla was able to jump out to significant leads in all three games. But in the first game, the Stars nearly completed a rally. After Wasilla led 21-16, Soldotna used a 6-2 run to cut Wasilla’s advantage to 23-21 late in the game.

Wasilla was able to stay ahead and grab a 25-23 lead in the first game.

While Wasilla used experience to score the win, Soldotna head coach Shelia Kupferschmid said she felt inexperience, and a little rust, plagued the Stars.

Since placing third in the Chugiak Invitational Sept. 2, the Stars have had only one match. Otherwise, it’s been nothing but practice for the Stars.

“We’ve had a good week-and-a-half of not playing ball, and it showed,” Kupferschmid said after the loss. “We needed some competition. We got that tonight.”

And when the individual game scores were close, Wasilla was able to maintain momentum to improve to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in Northern Lights Conference play.

“I thought their block was the reason for that,” Kupferschmid said of the Warriors. “They had a pretty good block. I think our inexperience showed as well. We couldn’t control their serves very well.”

Olivia Vincent led the Warriors with a dozen kills and four blocks in the win. Andraia Bella added four kills and a team-best 17 digs. Lindsey Cizek collected five aces and 15 assists. Victoria Malak finished with four kills and two blocks.

Wasilla continues NLC play Friday hosting Kenai at 6:30 p.m. Soldotna’s tour of the Valley continues with a date at Palmer at 6:30 p.m., and a match at Colony Saturday at 1:30 p.m.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.