Opponents who thought the UAA volleyball team might be an easier matchup this season are learning otherwise.
The Seawolves lost a huge amount of firepower from last year's record-setting team, but they've reloaded quite nicely. By beating UAF in Fairbanks on Tuesday, they equaled the school record for consecutive victories set last season.
The 10th-ranked Seawolves won their 14th straight match to duplicate the 14 in a row they won last year. They downed UAF 25-14, 25-10, 25-20 to run their record to 15-1, 5-0 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
The Seawolves are finding ways to make up for the loss of Katelynn Zanders and Julia Mackey, outside hitters who as seniors last season provided the bulk of the team's kills.
"I guess offensively we thought losing 70 percent of our offense would be really tough to overcome," UAA coach Chris Green said, "but the girls have done a good job. Defensively we maybe a little bit further ahead than we were last year. Offensively we're coming along better than we thought."
On Tuesday, five players furnished six kills or more, a group led by sophomore Leah Swiss with 13. Sophomore Chrisalyn Johnson added eight, senior Erin Braun and freshman Diana Fa'amausili each had seven and senior setter Morgan Hooe had six.
The Seawolves compiled a strong attack percentage of .312 during the match, which included a .429 percentage in the third set.
UAF, which was led by Kim Wong's seven kills, hit .060.
Braun and Fa'amausili both scored kills on half of their attack attempts — they were 7 of 14 — and both made two hitting errors to finish with identical .357 attack percentages.
Hooe hit an impressive .750, making eight attempts, six for kills, and no errors. The display was part of a performance that also included 30 assists, eight digs and a block assist. The only UAA player with more digs than Hooe was back-row player Kyla Militante-Amper with 16.
The victory came in the midst of a relentless four-match road trip for the Seawolves, who played in Washington and Canada last week and will play in Fairbanks and Montana this week.
"Over the span of 12 days, we've been traveling or partly traveling for nine of those," Green said.
After last week's wins over Western Washington and Simon Fraser, the Seawolves woke up at 2 a.m. Sunday for a morning flight home. They arrived in Anchorage at 8:45 a.m. and got to spend two nights at home before leaving Tuesday afternoon for Fairbanks.
After one night in Fairbanks, they're scheduled to spend two more nights in Anchorage before leaving Friday for Billings, Montana, where they have a Saturday match.
Green said the team didn't look as sharp Tuesday as it did the week before.
"Our energy level wasn't maybe as high as it could've been," he said. "Offensively we did some things, but we were not as crisp as I've seen in the past. Fairbanks did a good job blocking us and we never seemed to get in a rhythm."
Although a win in Billings would break the program record for consecutive wins, Green said the team isn't talking about the winning streak.
Instead, he said, they're talking about meeting expectations.
"Playing to a standard, trying to improve our play as we go through the season," he said. "Not to have the ups and downs.
"Statistically (Tuesday's performance) didn't look too bad but from the bench it didn't look too good. We do have some pretty high expectations. They've set the standard that we're expecting."