The Soldotna volleyball team opened the Northern Lights Conference volleyball tournament at Palmer High School on Thursday with a victory over Wasilla and a loss to Colony.
The Stars, the No. 5 seed, started the tournament with a 3-0 victory over Wasilla, the No. 4 seed. Soldotna then lost to top seed Colony 25-17, 30-28 and 25-19.
That puts the Stars in a 5 p.m. match today against the winner of the Wasilla-Kodiak match. The winner of the 5 p.m. match can finish no worse than third place at the double-elimination tournament, and the top three at the tournament go to the Class 4A state tournament.
Soldotna coach Luke Baumer has been waiting all season for his team to peak. Thursday, he saw that peak.
“We’re happy with how they played,” Baumer said. “What’s happening is exactly what the coaching staff thought would happen. We all got nervous, because it was taking awhile, but we knew we’d get that peak and now here we are.”
Katelyn Morrison had a monster match against Wasilla, with 15 kills. Morrison turned 43% of her sets into kills and had just three attacking errors.
Emma Brantley had 24 assists, while Chloe Armstrong had six kills and three aces, Aleena Zener had 12 digs, and Adarra Hagelund and Regan Hunt each had three blocks.
Baumer said Hagelund was very disruptive blocking at the net, and also got good swings on the ball to keep the blockers from cheating to the outside.
Against Colony, Morrison had 11 digs and eight kills, Armstrong had nine kills, Hagelund had six blocks, and Jolie Widaman and Armstrong had two aces.
Baumer said the Knights are the clear No. 1 seed. Colony was 8-0 in the league in the regular season, while Kodiak, Palmer and Wasilla were all 4-4, and the Stars were 0-8.
“They have so many weapons, they’re so fast and so well-coached,” Baumer said. “The fact we were able to go to 28-30 in the second set is a big confidence boost.”
