Nikiski volleyball gets revenge on Soldotna

The visiting Nikiski volleyball team defeated Soldotna 29-27, 25-23, 21-25 and 27-25 on Tuesday in nonconference action.

The match also served as the annual Dig Pink fundraiser for the Stars. The event raised $10,591 for Jaxon Thiemann, a former player for Skyview High School and the University of Alaska Fairbanks who helped coach SoHi last season.

According to “Support Jaxon’s Fight Against Cancer” on gofundme.com, Thiemann was diagnosed with breast cancer on June 3. At an appointment two days later, Thiemann learned she was pregnant. A few weeks later, Thiemann learned the baby is a girl and has Down syndrome.

Soldotna head coach Luke Baumer said the Nikiski match was a natural fit for the event, because both Baumer and Nikiski head coach Stacey Segura have played adult volleyball with Thiemann.

The event got an early 5 p.m. start due to homecoming activities, but fans still swarmed to the gym.

“Especially toward the end of the match, I was looking into the crowd and realizing, ‘Man, there’s a lot of people here,’” Baumer said. “I was really pleased with the turnout.

“And Jaxon and her family were here, which was fantastic.”

Segura said this was an awesome opportunity for her program.

“It’s really unfortunate what she’s going through, but hopefully this helps,” Segura said.

The Bulldogs were able to avenge a five-set loss at Nikiski on Aug. 26.

“I think both teams have great servers, great defense and then we have some pretty awesome attackers at the end,” Segura said. “So it’s a pretty even matchup.

“It was point for point, all of it.”

The tight first game wasn’t decided until SoHi made back-to-back hitting errors.

In the second game, the Stars went up 21-14 on an ace by Cassidy Kruse. A net violation got the ball to Nikiski’s Evelyn Reichert on serve, and she got the score all the way back to 22-all.

Blakeley Jorgensen, who had 13 kills and three blocks, then got two of the final three points for the Bulldogs on kills.

Jorgensen, a sophomore, and fellow middle hitter Mandee Roofe, a junior who had 11 kills and seven blocks, were major factors in the match.

“Blakeley and Mandee are doing an incredible job,” Segura said. “I’m very happy one’s a junior and one’s a sophomore.”

Baumer said the plan was to use two blockers on Jorgensen and Roofe and take away their powerful swings.

“We took away their power but we just didn’t have enough time in practice to know where everybody was supposed to be covering for short balls and placement, which is what they did tonight,” he said. “And they did a really good job of it.”

Baumer said when his squad did dig up the offspeed stuff, it left the Stars scrambling. He gave credit to Nikiski for good ball control that led to quick attacks. Those attacks were sometimes able to get Jorgensen and Roofe single blocks.

“It definitely showed me that we have a lot more to work on when it comes to the offspeed stuff,” Baumer said.

The teams then played another tight Game 4 before Roofe ended the match with an ace.

Segura wasn’t happy her team missed 14 serves, but Baumer said Nikiski’s serving made a difference.

“Our serve-receive wasn’t too bad, but the thing was, they just did a really good job of keeping our offense out of system,” Baumer said.

Nikiski finished fourth when it hosted the 18th annual Shayna Pritchard Memorial Volleyball Tournament in early September.

“It was a wakeup call for me and a wakeup call for them” Segura said. “We’re going to anchor down on our discipline and defense.”

Segura was happy with that defense against the Stars. Abby White had 24 digs, while Reichart had 17 digs and Halle Blades had 15 digs.

Segura also said Milly Hornung ran all over the place in racking up 32 assists.

Nikiski is now 3-1 in nontournament play, while the Stars are 6-2. The Stars host Seward at 5 p.m. Thursday before getting a week break. Nikiski heads to a tournament in Sitka this weekend.

“Our schedule has been so incredibly packed that we’ve hardly had any time to really practice and reset ourselves,” Baumer said.

Teagen Kobylarz had 34 assists and 12 digs for the Stars, while Morgan Simac had 17 digs and 15 kills, Cassidy Kruse had 10 kills and eight aces, Gracelyn Altobelli had five kills, Grayson Henry had four aces, Rebekah Pieh had three blocks and Ashlyn Hall had two blocks.