UAA Athletics

Vikings end Seawolves’ season in 1st round of West Region volleyball tourney

For two sets, the UAA volleyball team hung toe-to-toe with juggernaut Western Washington on Thursday, but the Vikings pulled away in the third and fourth sets to claim their 19th straight win and end the Seawolves' season in the first round of the West Region tournament.

Junior Abby Phelps piled up a monster double-double with 28 kills and 16 digs to power second-seeded Western Washington past UAA 26-24, 23-25, 25-18, 25-18 on Thursday in Riverside, California.

"I'm really proud of my team," UAA outside hitter Anais Vargas, one of two seniors of the team, said in the postgame press conference. "I'm satisfied as long as we went out swinging and that's what we did."

The Seawolves racked up 98 digs and tallied double-doubles by freshman setter Casey Davenport (45 assists, 16 digs), junior right side hitter Leah Swiss (17 kills, 14 digs) and junior outside hitter Chrisalyn Johnson (16 kills, 16 digs), but their normally deadly serving was lacking.

The Seawolves (19-11) led the Great Northwest Athletic Conference in aces this season with 1.75 per set, but they didn't get any Thursday in their third meeting this season against the Vikings (26-3).

The Vikings outhit the Seawolves .222 to .176 and reeled off 10 team blocks to UAA's 6, yet the Seawolves were two points away from holding a 2-0 lead through the first two sets.

The first set featured 13 ties, eight lead changes and no lead greater than three points. It was tied at 24-24 when the Vikings earned two points on a UAA attack error by Johnson and a Phelps kill at set point.

ADVERTISEMENT

"I think we came out pretty well for the first game," UAA coach Chris Green said. "We battled. That first game could have gone either way."

The second set was more of the same, except this time the Seawolves prevailed. With the match tied at 23-23, Johnson smacked back-to-back kills to take the set and tie the match at 1-1.

UAA couldn't sustain the momentum in the second half of the match and Western Washington pulled away midway through the third and fourth sets. The Vikings used a an 8-2 run to go up 16-10 in the third set and they held on from there.

They held off UAA late in the fourth set to win the latter two sets by identical 25-18 scores.

"Our whole team rallies up every time we play (UAA)," said Vikings junior Michaela Hall, who registered 12 kills on a .346 clip. "We feel like we know them front and back, they probably know us front and back … it's always a great game."

A season removed from a runner-up finish in the 2016 NCAA tournament, UAA fought through some midseason adversity with early-season losses and the dismissal of two sophomore starters — right side hitter Diana Fa'amousili and setter Madison Fisher — for a violation of team rules in September.

The Seawolves entered October with a 9-6 record before going on to win seven of their next eight matches and put themselves in a position to qualify for their fifth straight postseason.

UAA has 11 players on its roster with eligibility remaining, including its two biggest hitters Swiss (415 kills this season) and Johnson (372).

The Seawolves' biggest offseason task will be replacing All-West Region libero Keala Kaio-Perez, who led the GNAC in aces (0.47 per set) and was second in digs (655).

"It's nice to have a little bit of a break, but there's a lot of fire behind us right now," Swiss said. "It's just gonna take a lot of hard work this spring and a lot of hard work over summer so we come into next season ready to go."

Stephan Wiebe

Stephan Wiebe writes about all things Alaska sports.

ADVERTISEMENT