The Haines High School volleyball team endured a subpar season with too-few scoring opportunities. Still, hope remains high for the postseason, where they have all six other teams in their sights.
Last weekend, the Glacier Bears completed at a regional tournament in Skagway, which determined seeding placements for next month’s Region V volleyball tournament.
In the tournament, the team was too true to the form it showed all season: long rallies, excellent defensive coverage, and a difficulty in putting the ball away in scoring opportunities.
Haines finished the tournament with a 1-5 record, continuing its struggle to put points on the board. The performance dropped their season record to 3-9 in league play and 4-12 overall. However, they were competitive throughout the weekend’s matches and showed encouraging potential for the Region V tournament.
Coach Keri Ewing emphasized that the team’s floor coverage rotations on defense vastly improved over previous weeks. He also felt the girls’ energy and enthusiasm were tremendous.
“In our Sunday morning game against (undefeated) Craig, our girls came out fired up and we were pretty much even with them for the first 10 points,” Ewing said. “It was great to see our girls play that well against a team that good. “
Craig did eventually pull away in the match as Haines struggled to score, but Ewing was encouraged by the effort. “It was a good, strong way to finish the tournament out and gives us a lot to build on as we prepare for regionals in two weeks.”
Ewing also highlighted the improved play of Tailer Olsson, Lindy Hill, Marissa Haddock and Madeline Andriesen. He said they each played their best matches of the year and showed much greater confidence in going for overhead smashes. He hopes that confidence will continue to grow as the team pushes toward regionals.
As the team prepares for regionals, they face a challenge unique to life in Southeast Alaska: they will have no further practices with the entire team, due to some girls traveling out of town for other extracurricular school activities.
Coaches Cassie Miller and Alixanne Goodman shared their thoughts on that reality. “Without all the girls being there we can’t really work on coverage and rotations, so it makes game planning a lot more difficult. But a positive to that is that we can really focus on individual skills and fundamentals that we can’t normally focus on as intently during the season.”
Seeding order for the Region V volleyball tournament is: 1. Craig, 2. Petersburg, 3. Klawock, 4. Wrangell, 5. Metlakatla, 6. Haines, and 7. Skagway.
The Region V volleyball tournament will be held in Craig on Dec. 2 and 3.