Head coach Brian Herman has been confident about the girls volleyball team all season long — like, really, really confident. After this week, one thing is clear: Herman has every right to be.
The team won eight matches in half as many days, including a seven-match stretch at the Southeast seeding tournament where the Wolves did not drop a single set.
The seeding tournament was a three-day affair, with the first match on Oct. 10 before competition wrapped up on Saturday, Oct. 12. It was the first of two seeding tournaments the team will play in this season. The second will take place Nov. 7-9 in Petersburg. These tournaments dictate the rankings for the Southeast championship tournament Nov. 23.
However, before the Wolves arrived in Metlakatla for the seven-match round-robin, they played a full five-set match in Ketchikan on Oct. 9. Though Ketchikan High School has about eight times the number of students as Wrangell, the Wolves beat their southern rivals after extending the match to its deciding fifth set.
The match went back and forth all night long. Ketchikan won the first set, Wrangell the second. Ketchikan won a tight third. Wrangell beat them by 15 points in the fourth. Although the first-to-15 tiebreak was closer, Wrangell won by four points.
That meant the Wolves finished the match winning two straight sets. The next day in Metlakatla they did the same thing against Petersburg, winning the best-of-three match 2-0. Then another 2-0 win against Haines. Then Metlakatla. Then Hoonah. Then Craig. Then Klawock. Then Skagway. All wins. All two-nil. If you’re counting, that’s 16 straight sets across four days.
Herman, unsurprisingly, was thrilled.
“We’re playing in end-of-season form but it’s only the start of the year,” Herman said. “Across the board, everything was working. Almost 20% of our serves were aces. No team could run any offense against us if we were serving.”
Herman added that one difference between this year’s team compared to last year’s team is the number of dangerous servers.
“Last year, we relied on just one or two servers,” he admitted, “But this year, it doesn’t matter who is serving.”
Sophia Martinsen is a perfect example of this.
“Last year, she literally could not serve,” Herman said.
Just a year later, the sophomore has become one of the team’s best servers. Herman described Martinsen’s performance as “the tournament of her career,” adding, “Everything she did was so good. She was our best server.”
The monsoon of success that Wrangell rained down on their opponents puts the Wolves in unfamiliar territory.
“We are now the villain,” Herman joked. “Last year we were underdogs. We won Southeast as underdogs. This year, it’s a whole different situation.”
Despite having a proverbial target on their backs, Herman said he and assistant coach Shelley Powers are going to keep focusing on what works for this team: good habits, deadly serving and composed defense.
Next up, the Wolves will face Ketchikan on Thursday, Oct. 24, in the only home competition of the season. The best-of-five match will be the third time the out-of-conference rivals square off this season. Wrangell won both previous matchups.
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