Juneau spikers chug past Chugiak at state

ANCHORAGE - As the Juneau-Douglas High School volleyball team watched the early matches of the Class 4A state volleyball tournament Thursday at West Anchorage High School, the Crimson Bears saw opening-round jitters claim several favored teams.

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The first two Class 4A regional champs to play in the tourney lost, and a third 4A region winner fell later. Underdog teams also defeated two of the three regional champs in the Class 3A tournament.

As they watched the trend develop, the undefeated Crimson Bears - who won the Region V-Class 4A tournament last weekend - decided first-round jitters were not an option.

Showing few nerves, Juneau cruised to a 15-3, 15-4, 15-4 victory over the Chugiak Mustangs on Thursday night, keeping the Crimson Bears' hopes alive for their first state title.

"We saw the other teams start off slow, with jitters, and we decided that wasn't going to be us," Juneau senior middle blocker Amy Neussl said. "Our passing was shaky, but we had good serving and awesome defense."

"It was nice to get that first one out of the way," Juneau senior setter Callan Janowiec said. "We were pretty relaxed and we were prepared for them. We knew what they were bringing."

The victory improves Juneau's overall record to 18-0 in best three-out-of-five-game matches. It also gives the Crimson Bears a 94-5 record in all games this season. Chugiak, which was one of the teams to take a game from Juneau this season, fell to 14-12 overall with the loss.

Juneau advances into today's 4:45 p.m. semifinal against the Palmer Moose, which beat the Region IV champion Service Cougars, 15-2, 15-8, 15-13, in Thursday's late opening-round match.

The winner of today's Juneau-Palmer semifinal will play for their first Class 4A state championship at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, while today's loser will play at 2:15 p.m. Saturday in the third-fifth place match. Juneau beat Palmer in the opening round of last year's state tournament, but the two teams didn't face each other this year even though they were both at the Service-Dimond Invitational Tournament.

In Thursday's other opening-round matches of the Class 4A state tournament, the Bartlett Golden Bears knocked off the Region III champion Skyview Panthers, 15-9, 12-15, 15-13, 16-14, and the Homer Mariners upset the Region VI champion West Valley Wolfpack, 15-5, 15-7, 15-11.

Bartlett and Homer play in today's 3 p.m. semifinal, which will determine who plays the Juneau-Palmer winner in Saturday's championship match. None of the four teams left playing for the Class 4A state title has won one before, although Homer won a Class 3A championship in the 1989-90 season before moving up to Class 4A.

"We're totally pumped," Janowiec said. "That's what the whole season's all about, these three matches. That's exactly it. Going undefeated doesn't mean anything if we lose this weekend. This is what it's all about."

Even though Juneau has been to the state tournament for 14 straight years, the Crimson Bears have only reached the championship match once - a three-game loss to Service in 1999. The Crimson Bears finished third last year, beating Chugiak in the third-fifth place match, and this season's team features four returning starters from that squad.

That veteran leadership - all four returners (Neussl, Janowiec, senior outside hitter Kelly Baxter and junior outside hitter Julie Heard) are making their third trip to state - went a long way toward keeping the Crimson Bears on a steady course. Juneau never dropped more than three straight points during Thursday's match, and that Chugiak run came late in the third game.

"It was good to have those quick sideouts," Neussl said. "It keeps them from getting any momentum."

Besides playing each other in the state tournament last year, the Crimson Bears and Mustangs had seen each other a couple of times this season. Juneau swept a two-game round-robin mini-match from Chugiak during the Juneau Invitational Volleyball Extravaganza (JIVE Tournament), then claimed a 15-12, 10-15, 15-2, 15-12 victory over the Mustangs in the championship match of the JIVE. Juneau also swept a two-game round-robin mini-match from Chugiak en route to winning the Service-Dimond tournament later in the season.

"We've been getting ready for this match for a long time," Heard said. "I wasn't surprised."

"I don't think we were too worried," Juneau senior defensive specialist Nikki Bennett said.

Juneau was led by Baxter, who had 19 kills, 10 digs and served two aces. Neussl added nine kills and four solo blocks, while Heard had five kills and 13 digs and sophomore middle hitter Megan Treston added four kills. Janowiec was a perfect 16-for-16 serving with two aces, while Bennett was 20-for-20 serving with two aces.

"We were a little slow to start off, but we definitely played well," Baxter said. "I was jittery toward the beginning, but that made us play that much harder."

"We did really good, I liked it," said Treston, who was making her first state appearance.

Chugiak struggled with nerves in the first game, as the Mustangs sent several kills long and made a few passing errors. But Juneau was a lot stronger than the last time it played Chugiak.

"They had monster blocks," Chugiak's Kerry Kucko said. "They found good holes with them. We knew Juneau was an awesome team. We probably had a little nerves, but we were ready for them. We definitely didn't think they'd put them down like that."

"They played better defense than we did," said Chugiak coach Tait Rafat, who added that Juneau seemed to be able to anticipate the next play while Chugiak was still making the current one. "We didn't play as well as we needed to play."

Kucko led Chugiak with seven kills, while Kolena Kini added nine digs and Shaleen Seward had seven digs, three kills and one solo block.

Charles Bingham can be reached at cbingham@juneauempire.com.