By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitka and Mt. Edgecumbe volleyball teams played a determined Juneau-Douglas team this past weekend in matches played at the MEHS fieldhouse.
In their competition with their visitors from Juneau, Edgecumbe went down fighting 0-3 on Friday and 1-3 Saturday, and Sitka High ended up 2-3 Friday and 3-2 Saturday.
On the Sitka side, coach Zaide Allen called the matches “super close.” The set scores on Friday were 23-25, 25-20, 21-25, 23-25, and 10-15. Scores on Saturday were 25-20, 25-22, 13-25, 22-25, and 16-14. Allen said that the team “had a really good two days serving, we were at 90 percent serving in.”
She was happy with how her girls played, saying that Chloe Morrison “led the team with two strong days of hitting, leading the team in kills, followed by Jocelyn Brady.” Also, Talilah Frederickson and Ava Brady hit very well, and Morgan Feldpausch held the front line.
Zaeda Dumag “led the team in assists and had a very strong day setting,” Allen told the Sentinel. Tiffany Elefante and Rean Famini had strong passing games this weekend too.
Allen noted that her players adapted to Juneau-Douglas as the teams went through their sets. By the end of the matches, she “knew that if we could keep the ball in play, we had a very good chance of winning.”
The Mt. Edgecumbe team also fought hard over the weekend with set scores Friday of 19-25, 24-26, and 25-30. On Saturday, the sets ended up at 20-25, 24-26, 25-13, and 19-25. MEHS coach Mike Mahoney said that “Juneau-Douglas is in a building year for sure, they have a couple really great players.” Edgecumbe struggled to defend their middle against Juneau’s strong hitters. But much like Sitka’s coach Allen, Mahoney was happy that his team improved and adapted over the course of the sets. He noted that his team “got a lot better between Friday and Saturday nights.”
He said that “on Friday night, we had one hundred percent serving.” Notably, Lizzy Allen scored six kills with only two errors, in what Mahoney called “a great night.” The MEHS team also made fewer serve-receive errors on Saturday, again showing their ability to adapt quickly. Shayna Warnke-Green made four aces without a single error. Brody Wysocki received 18 serves with only one error.
On Saturday, Angelina Ong made a remarkable 27 digs and Vernae Raymouth scored 11 kills with three errors.
Despite these successes, MEHS had two difficult nights against Juneau. But Mahoney noted that he is “really proud of them as a team. If you have a bad night and you lose, nobody likes losing, but it’s how you come back from it the next night and they came back strong, positive, and they stayed together.”
Both Sitka High and Mt. Edgecumbe will play again this week, in Sitka, against Anchorage Christian School and Ketchikan. MEHS and SHS have yet to play each other this season, and will not do so until September 27-28.
This week’s lineup:
Thursday
4 p.m. MEHS JV- SHS JV
MEHS varsity-ACS
7 p.m. ACS-Sitka
7:30 p.m. MEHS- Ketchikan
Friday
4 p.m. MEHS-Ketchikan
Sitka-ACS
7 p.m. MEHS- ACS
Sitka-Ketchikan
Saturday
1 p.m. Ketchikan-ACS
4 p.m. Sitka-Ketchikan
MEHS-ACS
7 p.m. Sitka-ACS
MEHS-Ketchikan
The volleyball events of this week begin Thursday at MEHS with a 4 p.m. match up between MEHS JV and SHS JV, as well as a game at the same time MEHS varsity and ACS. At 7 p.m., ACS plays Sitka, and at 7:30 p.m. MEHS plays Ketchikan.
On Friday, at 4 p.m. MEHS plays Ketchikan again and Sitka also plays ACS. At 7 p.m. MEHS plays ACS and Sitka plays Ketchikan. On Saturday at 1 p.m., Ketchikan plays ACS, at 4 p.m. Sitka goes up against Ketchikan, and also at 4 p.m. MEHS plays ACS. Finally, at 7 p.m., Sitka plays ACS and MEHS goes against Ketchikan.
All matches will be played at the MEHS gym and are open to the public.
