The Wrangell girls volleyball team attended its first tournament of the season over the weekend in what head coach Brian Herman called a “hit and miss” series of six matches against five opponents.
Hosted by Juneau-Douglas High School, the Juneau Invitational Volleyball Extravaganza gave Wrangell a rare peek outside the Southeast conference during pool play on Friday, Oct. 4, and the subsequent seeded tournament on Saturday, Oct. 5.
The wolves opened their season with a 1-1 split against Metlakatla, before Mount Edgecumbe “handed them their hats” in a 0-2 defeat, according to Herman. They rebounded in a 2-0 sweep versus Ketchikan before dropping two tight sets against Anchorage’s West High in the final match of pool play.
Based on the first day’s results, teams are then divided into a “gold” bracket and a “silver bracket” for the Saturday tournament. Notably, the Wolves were the only team in their conference to qualify for the gold bracket. All the other qualifiers were larger schools that compete in the 3A and 4A conferences.
The Saturday tournament was double elimination. After losing in a tiebreak set 11-15 against Anchorage’s Mountain City Christian Academy, Wrangell bowed out of the tournament in a tight loss against West Anchorage. The Wolves were up 20-16 in back-to-back first-to-25 sets against their much larger opponent.
“We just couldn’t finish,” Herman said.
Despite boarding the southbound jet Sunday with a losing record, Herman is focusing on the context of the losses. Not only did the competition against 3A and 4A schools provide good exposure for Wrangell — who will play all other tournaments against fellow 2A-level programs — but it helped Herman and assistant coach Shelley Powers precisely identify the team’s weaknesses.
“We’ve got a plan for the next two or three weeks,” Herman said. “We know exactly what we need to work out.”
Wrangell’s best performance of the weekend came in their sole win of the tournament against Ketchikan. In their third match of the day, the Wolves swept their southern neighbors 25-15 and 25-17 on Friday.
“We weren’t really playing well for the first two matches of the season, but we picked it up and played really well against Ketchikan,” Herman said.
Ketchikan is the only out-of-conference opponent Wrangell will face again this season. The first rematch is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 9, in Ketchikan, with the Kayhi team coming to Wrangell on Oct. 24 to provide the Wolves with a senior night and rare home match.
Due to the cross-conference nature of last weekend’s tournament, there is no way of directly measuring Wrangell against their in-conference opponents. However, the 3A and 4A schools that Wrangell lined up against have been in-season since August, and many had already played more than 15 matches.
“All in all, we were competitive with those 3A and 4A schools,” Herman said. “We’re just scratching the surface at this point. All the other 2A schools were down in the ‘silver’ bracket. We were head and shoulders above all the other teams from Southeast.”
Wrangell will compete in an in-conference tournament in Metlakatla on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 11-12. However, on their way to the tournament, the team will stay over at Ketchikan High School where they will play Kayhi in an impromptu midweek contest on Wednesday, Oct. 9.
Outside of the home and away matches against Ketchikan, Wrangell will only play in-conference opponents for the remainder of the season.
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