The Lady Wolves had a successful weekend against Haines and Petersburg last Friday and Saturday, winning three out of four matches, with extra practice and some “tinkering” making the difference the second night of the competition in Haines.

The Wrangell squad defeated Petersburg in five sets on Saturday, winning against their cross-water rivals for the first time this season after losing three consecutive matches to the Vikings.

The Saturday win was a comeback from a four-set loss on Friday.

“I’m really proud of the girls. They stuck with it, even though we were struggling quite a bit on Friday. They didn’t give up,” said Brian Herman, who coached the girls for the Oct. 23-24 matches in Haines.

“We made some corrections and we worked with some of our passers on Saturday morning and got them back on track … it made a huge difference.”

“The girls wanted to put in some extra time … everybody kind of did what we asked them to,” he said.

The 1-1 weekend against Petersburg will not count in conference standings, Herman explained, since Wrangell already had played the Vikings twice this year, and conference rules limit teams to two games a season against each opponent.

The two wins against Haines will count in conference standings, which are important in determining seedings at the Southeast regional championships Nov. 19-21 in Metlakatla.

Against Haines, the Lady Wolves won in five sets on Friday by scores of 22-25, 25-22, 25-19, 23-25 and then 15-8 in the fifth set that is played to 15.

“We were not playing well on Friday,” Herman said. “We weren’t passing well,” leading to the Saturday morning practice session.

It worked, with the Wolves defeating Haines in straight sets on Saturday, 25-17, 25-22 and 25-15.

Wrangell lost to Petersburg in four sets on Friday, 17-25, 25-18, 18-25 and 17-25 before coming back for a five-set win on Saturday, 27-25, 14-25, 25-19, 22-25 and 17-15 in the final matchup.

Looking at Saturday’s games, Herman said freshman Saylor Welch “played really, really well,” and senior Sophia Martinsen “got back on track with her defense from last year.”

He added, “We started playing closer to our potential.”

For Saturday’s matches, “we changed our lineup a little bit” and moved some players into different roles on the court.

“We still have some more things to tinker with,” Herman said. “We’re hopefully only going to get better from here.”

It was an exhausting two days, the coach said. “We played nine sets straight on Friday and eight sets straight on Saturday,” with a 10-minute break before warmups started for the next competition. 

“It was rough. They were pretty whooped. They were ready for bed.”

The next matches for the Wolves will be Nov. 6-7 in Petersburg, where Wrangell will compete against Craig and Metlakatla — but no games against Petersburg. Those will be the final games of the regular season before Southeast regionals 12 days later.