Nikiski volleyball denies Kenai a state 3-peat

The Nikiski volleyball team defeated Kenai Central in the championship match, then the if-necessary match, at the Class 3A state volleyball tournament Saturday at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage.

The Bulldogs captured the sixth state title in school history by swimming against history, until they were swimming with it.

In 2012, the Alaska School Activities Association went to the double-elimination format for the Class 3A and 4A tournaments.

If the team that made the championship match undefeated loses the championship match, then a 30-point, if-necessary game is played for all the marbles.

Since the adoption of the format, no Class 3A or 4A team has ever lost in the first round, then come all the way back to win the championship.

Nikiski lost in the first round to Valdez on Thursday, then won four matches Friday and Saturday to get to the championship against Kenai.

Once in the title game, the Bulldogs had history on their side. Later Saturday, Wasilla also swept the championship match and if-necessary game, becoming the eighth team in 10 tries to pull off that feat.

The 2018 Nikiski squad was one of the teams to lose the championship match then win the if-necessary game. That squad was coached by Stacey Segura, who now has her second state title in 12 years at the helm.

Segura, who led the program to state for the ninth time, said this state title was much more difficult due to losing to Valdez 3-2 in the first round.

“I’ll just be honest with you, now that we have won, and I’m sure the girls would agree,” Segura said. “We were just really disappointed.

“I think we had better expectations for ourselves, and then we weren’t clicking. We weren’t meshing as a team. The girls weren’t talking. We had some attitudes. It was just not the team I saw last week against Kenai.”

At the Southcentral Conference tournament last week in Nikiski, the Bulldogs twice pushed the Kardinals to five sets before losing.

“When we lost to Valdez, the first thing we said was, now it’s going to be that much more of a battle,” Nikiski senior Kailey Stynsberg said. “We chose the hardest road doing that and it was hard not to get our spirits down.

“But we knew our end goal, and we had to push through if we wanted it.”

Friday, Nikiski beat Barrow 3-0, Sitka 3-2 and Seward 3-1. Saturday, the Bulldogs denied Valdez a fourth straight trip to the final with a 19-25, 18-25, 25-20, 25-20 and 15-11 victory.

Meanwhile, Kenai was cruising. The Kards swept Monroe Catholic and Sitka on Thursday before sweeping Valdez on Friday to roll into the championship match undefeated in full-length matches this season.

After the Southcentral Conference tournament, Segura said her team was right with Kenai until the pressure-packed Game 5s, when the Kardinals’ experience took over.

If nothing else, the circuitous route to the championship game gave the Bulldogs five more matches of learning to handle pressure when the stakes are the highest.

“It’s like when you have a taste of something and it’s so close, you know you want more of it,” Nikiski’s Ashlynne Playle said. “Every time you would get a win, it got closer and closer.

“All we wanted was for it to just be here.”

Even with that momentum, taking down the Kards was a daunting task.

Early in the season, Nikiski defeated Kenai in the best-of-three championship at the North-South tourney in Seward.

Other than that, the Kards beat Nikiski at two other tournaments, won the two conference matches in the regular season 3-1 and topped the Bulldogs twice at the conference tournament.

And that’s just this season. Nikiski had not defeated the Kardinals in a best-of-five match since 2019.

Kenai had not lost a best-of-five match to a Kenai Peninsula team since Homer topped the Kards for the 2019 state title — another of the championship match and if-necessary game sweeps.

That began a run of five straight state finals for the Kardinals that easily could have been six if not for the canceled tournament in pandemic 2020. Kenai won the titles in 2022 and 2023.

“How many times we played against Kenai, it just helped,” Nikiski senior Avery Ellis said. “We’ve done like four different rotations against Kenai. We tried all this stuff, and we found one that, this is the one, we can do this.

“We knew them. We know what they do. We know who their hitters are. Where they hit.”

Nikiski’s confidence and newfound, late-game moxie quickly swept the Bulldogs through the championship match. Kenai pushed late in every game but Nikiski won 25-22, 27-25 and 25-21.

“It’s hard to be undefeated,” said Kenai head coach Tracie Beck, who has orchestrated the Kardinals run of success. “I think Nikiski played awesome.

“I think we played like we were going to lose the world’s championship. So I think we tried too hard today.”

The championship match sweep was nice for the Bulldogs, but the if-necessary game was where things would get real. This would be akin to the Game 5s where Kenai took control at the conference tournament.

This was Alaska Volleyball today, where later at the Alaska Airlines Center 4,388 fans would watch the University of Alaska Anchorage take on the University of Alaska Fairbanks and set a Division II attendance record.

Fans of the 4A finalists were filing in during the 3A if-necessary game to make the lower bowl fuller and fuller. The tension got thicker and thicker with each fan that took a seat.

Kenai did what Kenai does in such situations. This was the last chance for seniors Avia Miller, Kate Wisnewski, Stella Selanoff, Sarah Baisden, Tait Cooper and manager Kaylauna Gump.

“How well they’ve mastered this season is impressive,” Beck said. “You see them mature into these amazing women, and they’re ready for the world.

“They’re not afraid to do hard things, and they’re not afraid to just keep working and never give up. We definitely regrouped. They came back and did what I asked.”

Kenai’s crisp attack got Sophie Tapley four kills and Miller two kills as the Kards went up 19-16.

Both teams have been dealing with illness recently, but there were no signs of that during an incredibly long point that was finally decided when Wisnewski — the setter — spiked down a kill. Miller followed with a kill that made it 21-16.

“That’s what we look for — the overwhelmingness of our offense,” Beck said. “Nikiski stayed the course.”

Ellis and fellow senior Alexa Iyatunguk said the team was oddly calm considering the setting and the stakes.

“We just didn’t overthink it,” Iyatunguk said. “We didn’t get in our heads.

“One point after the next one. Just slowly going forward and not overthinking it.”

Kenai has some of the best serve-receive in the business, but Nikiski junior Evelyn Reichert used some crafty serves to earn four straight points and tie the match at 22 on a kill by Playle.

Playle also had a kill to cut Kenai’s lead to 25-24, then Nikiski sophomore Mandee Roofe took over.

Even as a freshman, Roofe’s tenacious blocking had served notice of the potential of her height and athleticism.

When Roofe learned to bring the same attitude to attacking as she does to blocking, there was going to be trouble. That trouble came just at the right time for Nikiski.

“She was our Hulk smash,” Segura said. “She had this different personality that came out. She got really fired up.

“I don’t want to say that she was mad, but she was like, ‘I’m not going to let this happen. We’re going to win, and I’m going to do everything I can.’”

On Nikiski’s final six points, Roofe had two kills and three stuff blocks as the Bulldogs finally solved the Kardinals, 30-27.

“It’s like a piece of the puzzle,” Playle said. “We’re each a piece of the puzzle, and when we’re all together, the puzzle is full. It’s filled and it’s done.

“We couldn’t do this with one of our players out. We couldn’t even do it with one of our bench players out, because they hyped us up.”

Putting the puzzle together was Segura and assistants Krystal Keith and Jennifer Hornung, who also coached seniors Iyatunguk, Ellis, Stynsberg and Playle to a borough title in middle school.

“Stacey’s brutal, man, but she gets us to work,” Playle said of the 2006 Nikiski grad. “She knows exactly what buttons to push and how hard to push them.

“She’s the rock of Nikiski volleyball. There would be no Nikiski volleyball without those three women.”

Segura had the team watch the tape of the 2018 state title match at the team breakfast at the conference tournament this year.

The seniors remember that state title.

“We wanted to be in the volleyball program because of that,” Playle said. “Those women were in that volleyball program, leading that team to state, and now they led us to state.”

In the championship match and super set, Stynsberg had 33 digs, Reichert had 28 digs, Ellis had 22 assists and two aces, Milly Hornung had 20 assists, Playle had 19 kills, Roofe had 11 kills and 11 blocks, and Iyatunguk had 10 kills and seven blocks.

For the Kards, Brynnen Hanson had 51 digs, Tapley had 12 kills and three blocks, Selanoff had 11 kills, Avia Miller had nine kills, Wisnewski had 47 assists and two aces, Ellsi Miller had three blocks and Baisden had two aces.

Against Valdez for Nikiski, Stynsberg had 33 digs, Reichert had 28 digs, seven kills and two aces, Ellis had 22 assists and two aces, Playle had 13 kills, Iyatunguk had five kills, Roofe had seven kills and seven blocks, and Blakeley Jorgensen had seven blocks.

Stynsberg, Iyatunguk and Playle made the all-tournament team for Nikiski, while Hanson, Wisnewski and Tapley earned the honor for Kenai.