Seawolves to play for national volleyball championship

Chrisalyn Johnson's knees were shaking and Morgan Hooe's voice was going hoarse. Across the net was a team that had won 32 straight matches, had the third-best block in the nation and was threatening to take the Seawolves to a fifth set.

It was time for the UAA volleyball team to end things.

Johnson did the honors with a cross-court missile that propelled the Seawolves into the national championship match for the first time in school history.

UAA beat Palm Beach Atlantic 25-16, 19-25, 25-17, 25-22 on Friday to earn a spot in Saturday's championship match against Concordia-St. Paul. Both teams will bring 34-2 records into the 2 p.m. AST match at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The enormity of the moment — and the four-set battle that preceded it — left Hooe, UAA's captain and All-America setter, speechless.

"I don't have the words for it right now — literally and figuratively, because I don't have my voice," she said in a phone interview.

UAA coach Chris Green fared little better at a post-match press conference.

"I don't know if I have words that can express our thoughts right now," he said.

That's OK, because the Seawolves made all the right responses when it mattered most.

Playing against last season's national runner-up, UAA solved the riddle of Palm Beach Atlantic's monster block, survived a second-set collapse and repelled the Sailfish's last-gasp rally.

The Seawolves finished with a .191 attack percentage, and they got double-figure digs from five players to hold Palm Beach Atlantic (32-4) to one of its worst hitting percentages of the season, .092.

When Johnson's kill ended things, Hooe and freshman Diana Fa'amausili sank to the floor while the rest of the team crowded around in celebration.

"The moment is still unreal," Johnson said. "We know it happened, but the result just hasn't hit us yet. But we know we're going to play again."

Johnson, a sophomore outside hitter from Dimond High, racked up 17 kills and 14 digs to lead a UAA team that outhit and outdug the Sailfish.

She was part of a quartet of Anchorage-raised players who came through with big matches.

Hooe, a South High grad, handed out 51 assists to become UAA's all-time assist leader. Leah Swiss, a sophomore out of Dimond, supplied 14 kills and 12 digs. Taylor Noga, a sophomore out of East, had a career-high 19 digs.

"Being from Alaska, you're never seen as good enough to come this far," Hooe said.

The Seawolves, who until this season had never advanced to the Elite Eight, have gone where no other UAA volleyball team has gone in part because of a simple, two-word mantra: Next play.

It's a reminder to not dwell on mistakes or adversity, and it came in handy a couple of times Friday.

The Seawolves were stuck on 23 points for what seemed like an eternity in the fourth set as the Sailfish battled back, scoring five straight points to whittle UAA's lead from 23-17 to 23-22.

The run happened once Sarah Ragland, PBA's All-America middle blocker, rotated into the front row and immediately made life miserable for the Seawolves.

"My knee were shaking," Johnson said. "I was just trying to encourage people, 'The only way we can get this next point is with a pass, a set and a kill.' ''

The Seawolves got to 24-22 on a hitting error by PBA, and match point came on the next serve. Hooe set Fa'amausili, whose attack deflected off the Sailfish block and was picked up by Swiss, who passed the ball to Hooe.

"Morgan set it to me, and No. 5 (Ragland) was in there so I swung around her," Johnson said.

Ragland, a 6-foot-2 junior who is a two-time All-America pick, had one solo block and eight block assists for Palm Beach. The Sailfish are Division II's third-best blocking team, and they made 14 blocks to UAA's 10.

"Their block was their advantage," Johnson said. "You had to swing around it, over it or use it, those were our three options.

"We watched film and studied them, and knew when certain players were in or out, we needed to be racking up points. We knew when No. 5 was off the court we had more angles and we knew we had to rack up the points then."

Green, in a phone interview, credited UAA's ability to withstand the Sailfish block in part to conference opponent Central Washington, which led the nation in blocks this season. Fa'amausili credited a loss to Chaminade in the second match of the season, which taught the Seawolves not to be timid against a big block.

"Chaminade, they were blocking the crap out of us," she said. "We were kinda like tentative and we weren't being aggressive. We always think back to the game — 'Let's not pull a Chaminade' — and just stay aggressive."

In the second set, the Sailfish held UAA to a .023 attack percentage while erasing an early 6-0 UAA lead. On three straight plays, they blocked attacks by Johnson.

With the match tied going into the third set, UAA turned to its mantra: Next play.

"After that second game we knew we had to step up our game, for sure," Hooe said.

And the Seawolves did. They limited the effectiveness of the Palm Beach block to hit .361 with 16 kills against three errors, and their defense held the Sailfish to .105 hitting.

"We kept fighting," Green said. "We stayed confident and played maybe some of the best volleyball I've seen UAA play in that third set.

"… It was some of the best volleyball we've played, offensively and defensively. A coach is happy when that's happening at the end of the season."