Lady Wolves win 3, lose 3 at first volleyball tournament of the season

The Lady Wolves volleyball team started their season with three big wins and three tough losses in the Klawock seeding tournament Oct. 19-21.

After winning their first match against Skagway 3-0, the team played “a really tough match” against Craig that also resulted in a 3-0 win for Wrangell.

“The girls did really, really well” in the Craig match, said co-coach Brian Herman, who is leading the team with Shelley Powers this season. They “came back from a late-game deficit, they came back and won.”

Then, to round out their winning streak, the Wolves took on Haines for another 3-0 win.

In the second half of the tournament, however, their luck changed, starting with a 0-3 loss against Metlakatla.

The team “played fairly well,” said Herman, but “just couldn’t finish out the games. We were right with them the whole time.”

The Wolves also lost 0-3 in their next game against Klawock, but this time, Herman was less impressed by their performance. “We really just never got going at all,” he said.

The team’s newer players would freeze up in unfamiliar situations and let Klawock control the ball throughout the match.

Though the girls lost 0-3 against Petersburg for the final game of the tournament, they “absolutely played phenomenal,” he continued, making for “a really tight match.”

Despite the Wolves’ occasional slipups in Klawock, Herman is still optimistic that the team can win the regional championship. “I think our biggest disadvantage was that every other team there had played at least one tournament if not multiple, and we’re just brand new,” he said.

The team was slated to play in Juneau Oct. 13 to 14, but wasn’t able to attend due to travel delays, making the Klawock tournament the first of Wrangell’s season.

The athletes are also very young, on average, and new to the game. “It’s not going to be easy, but the girls really did show some good potential,” Herman said. “When they were playing well, it looked like really good volleyball.”

On Saturday, Oct. 28, the Petersburg Junior Varsity team is scheduled to visit Wrangell and Herman plans to let the team’s younger and less experienced players maximize their time on the court during these games. “We’re just going to play all day until they have to leave,” he said.

The goal is to give the girls “as much play time as we can get in, which is really going to help our younger players.”

On Nov. 3 and 4, the team will travel to Haines for the second regional seeding tournament before the regional championship in Petersburg Nov. 16-18.