Volleyball team takes Southeast title, state up next

Three-peat secured.

The Wrangell High School volleyball team are Southeast champions. After entering the tournament as favorites, Wrangell beat Hoonah, Petersburg and Metlakatla en route to head coach Brian Herman's third consecutive title in as many years at the program's helm.

The Southeast 2A tournament was held at Craig High School on Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 21-23. The champs have a week to rest up before the state tournament Dec. 5-7 in Palmer.

Wrangell trounced the Hoonah Braves in the first day of the Southeast tournament, beating them 25-15 in the first set, 25-23 in the second and 25-12 in the final set. Christina Johnson and Aubrey Wynne led the way for the Wolves, serving 14 aces between the two of them.

In the next day of the double-elimination tournament, No. 1 seed Wrangell matched up against No. 4 Petersburg. The Vikings were coming off a hard-fought, four-set thriller over Craig in the first round and were looking to finally get the better of their rivals to the south.

But the Wolves didn't care. They didn't care that pretty much the entire crowd were cheering against them. They didn't care that they were heavy favorites - that Petersburg hadn't won a single set against them in this season's previous two matchups. They didn't care that Petersburg was coming in hot, and they certainly didn't care about Metlakatla, who awaited them in the next round. They only cared about winning.

So, they won. Wrangell won by eight points in the first set, before blowing the Vikings out of the water in the subsequent second and third sets, 25-13 and 25-14. Wynne attributed the stomping win to the team's consistency.

"We are really well-rounded as a team offensively and defensively," she told the Ketchikan Daily News. "It is hard to find our weak spots, we just have a strong all-around team of girls."

Next up was Metlakatla on the third day. The first match went back and forth. Wrangell took the first set; Metlakatla took the second and third. Wrangell forced the match to a tiebreak fifth set when they won the fourth by just two points. The tiebreak, however, wasn't close. Wrangell won 15-9, the highest margin of victory by either team in the match.

This win moved Wrangell to 3-0 on the season when a best-of-five match went to a tiebreak set. Due to the double-elimination nature of the tournament, Metlakatla was bumped down to the losers' bracket. If they beat Peterburg, they would again face Wrangell, who now awaited them in the finals. Metlakatla won, securing a finals date with their rivals to the north.

As Gladiator II opened in movie theaters across the country, Wrangell girls volleyball stepped into a coliseum of their own, facing Metlakatla for the Southeast title.

In the teams' previous matchup at the Southeast seeding tournament in Petersburg on Nov. 9, the Chiefs got the better of the Wolves. Metlakatla delivered Wrangell its sole Southeast defeat all season, beating them in a tight first set before walloping Wrangell in the second set 25-14 to secure the win.

But fast forward to the Southeast championship match, and it's safe to say that Wrangell had their vengeance (in this life, not the next).

Wrangell started off right where they picked up in the previous round, beating the Chiefs by a combined 15 points in the first two sets. Metlakatla clawed back and won the next two sets (26-24, 25-17) and forced the Wolves into a first-to-15 tiebreak set. But the Metlakatla rally wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to get past Wrangell's aggressive serving, it wasn't enough to make up for Wrangell defensive fluidity and it certainly wasn't enough to take the Southeast championship out of the hands of the region's best team.

So, when Wynne's aced a serve from the left side to win the final set, one thing was for certain: the Southeast trophy wasn't going anywhere.

Next up, the Wolves will head to Palmer for the state championships on Dec. 5-7. Herman, who is hoping to improve on last year's fourth-place finish, is already preparing for the tournament.

"We are watching film this week to see how we match up against some of those other teams," he said. "From what we've seen, we've got a pretty good shot."