By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
With the first conference game of the season around the corner, the Sitka High Lady Wolves faced off against Juneau-Douglas High and Grace Christian School over the weekend, finishing 1-3 after two days of volleyball.
For many of Sitka’s players, the Friday and Saturday games were learning opportunities for the athletes who played in novel positions on the court.
“I enjoyed having the rotations and stuff, and it was fun to see how well we worked with other people too,” Michele Winger, a junior, told the Sentinel. She usually plays center, but spent some time as a right-side hitter this weekend.
Senior Riley Nutting typically plays as a right-side hitter, but played outside in some sets.
“It’s a little scary at first, but I think it’s important to stay calm, you’ve got this and just do your best to do what you can,” Nutting recalled.
Lady Wolves junior Ava Brady hits the ball against Juneau-Douglas as her teammates look on from the bench, Friday at Sitka High. Sitka beat Juneau-Douglas and fell to Grace Christian that day. (Sentinel photo by James Poulson)
On Friday, the Lady Wolves won their match against Juneau. While Juneau won the first set 25-23, Sitka came back and won the next two sets 26-24 and 15-10.
Sitka then fell to Grace Christian, which scored a narrow victory in the first set 25-23, followed by a 25-18 win. Sitka came out on top in the third set 25-19, but Grace sealed the best-of-five match with a hard fought 33-31 win in the fourth set.
On Saturday, Juneau came out on top, though Sitka won the second and fourth sets, 25-16 and 28-26. Juneau won the first and third sets 26-24 and 25-19, forcing a fifth set as a tiebreaker. Juneau won 15-13.
Against Grace, Sitka won the first two sets 25-19 and 25-16, but the team from Anchorage rebounded and won the next three sets 25-23, 25-18, and 15-13 to clinch the win.
The Juneau and Grace games were freshman Hayla Trigg’s first opportunity to play against other teams.
“They’re pretty scary. It was my first time actually playing games, since COVID I haven’t been able to play other people. And since I’m on varsity it’s just a lot different than just playing on JV… This year was my actual first year of playing other teams,” Trigg said. A defensive specialist, she plays libero.
From her perspective as a junior, Winger was pleasantly surprised that the team performed well without their full starting lineup and with freshmen on the court.
“It was very interesting that we did so well having freshmen come up and not having our starters on, but we did what we could with what we had,” Winger said.
Nutting stressed the team’s ability to adapt and pull together.
“We all trust each other very well and even off the court are very close to one another, and I think just being able to come together – honestly there were some obstacles two of our starters were out some of the games – but just being able to trust each other and really work hard and play in new spots,” she said.
Faced with capable teams from two 4A schools, the senior said the Lady Wolves faced an uphill fight against the big schools.
“For me they were definitely difficult, especially because last year we only got to play a couple teams, only two. And so it was definitely different to get to play 4A schools and stuff, a little shocking at first but I think we pulled through and did pretty well,” she said.
Like her players, coach Zaide Allen said the team has proven itself to be adaptable.
“They’re just really good at being adaptable and being thrown into a rotation and things that they’ve never done,” Allen said. “At one point we did something that we had never practiced in practice before and they won that match (against Juneau).”
The team sometimes struggled to piece together all of the needed elements of volleyball, the coach said.
“They played defense pretty well. What it felt like all weekend was if one thing was working another thing maybe wasn’t. And the girls explained this well, that sometimes it didn’t feel like we were able to string it all together, but I think a lot of that has to do with so much changing, so many different things and not being able to practice with our full squad,” Allen said.
She thinks that many of the issues stemmed from the fact that lineup and positions are in flux.
“Let’s just say our hitting was going well. Well, maybe our serve-receive wasn’t going well, but maybe if our serve-receive was going well our hits were going out,” she said. “It just kind of felt like it wasn’t all being strung together, but it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’m worried about this.’ You know, I think a lot of that is attributed to players playing next to players they’re not used to playing next to.”
Regardless of any games against 4A schools, the first conference match of the season between cross-bridge rivals Sitka and Mt. Edgecumbe takes place tonight at MEHS. The schedule is below.
