Soldotna volleyball topples Nikiski

The visiting Soldotna volleyball team defeated Nikiski 25-17, 25-20, 22-25 and 25-22 on Thursday in nonconference action.

Though the Stars, now 4-3 in nontournament play, are a Class 4A team and the Bulldogs, now 2-2, are Class 3A, Soldotna head coach Luke Baumer was stoked his team was able to come in and get a win on Nikiski’s homecoming.

Soldotna has already been swept by two other Class 3A peninsula teams — Kenai and Homer — this year.

“The peninsula is so strong this year,” Baumer said. “It’s like we talked to the girls about, you’ve got to go into all these games like it’s going to be a battle.”

Baumer said the Bulldogs won a tournament at the end of a team camp at the University of Alaska Anchorage this summer, so he came in with a ton of respect for Nikiski.

“One of the things we talked about in these last couple weeks was the difference of coming here to win and coming here to compete,” Baumer said. “We’ve got to switch our mind-set from thinking winning is how we’re going to judge our success.

“That’s not what we do. We come here to compete.”

For Baumer, competing means letting it rip on serves and on the attack. Nikiski head coach Stacey Segura said a big difference in the first two games was that the Bulldogs struggled against SoHi’s strong serving. Kate Curtis led SoHi with three aces.

The Stars also went for it on the attack. Sarah Brown had 39 assists, while Sadie Lane had 17 kills and Cassidy Kruse had 10 kills.

Baumer said a problem in the early season was the Stars were doing too much offspeed stuff on the attack — like tips — instead of swinging.

“So for that whole week before Palmer, every drill we did the concept was you had to swing more than any offspeed ball — swing more than tips, swing more than roll,” he said.

Thursday, the Stars had 89 swings compared to 64 offspeed balls. Baumer said the growing chemistry between Brown and the hitters also is helping.

Segura is not happy with the way her team reacted to SoHi’s attack.

“We were lacking in discipline in where we needed to be, what we needed to be doing and what we needed to be reading,” she said. “They just weren’t reading well tonight.”

Baumer said the other key for his team was the block. Hallie Fischer had five blocks, Kruse had four and Lane backed that up with 20 digs.

“We’ve been working so much on our block these past two weeks, about being up as early as we possibly can, floating and waiting for the ball,” he said.

Both Baumer and Segura agreed that Ashlynne Playle was a force for Nikiski. Playle had 16 kills.

“I think she was pretty unstoppable in the middle,” Segura said of Playle. “Cassidy Kruse was up with a big block. It’s volleyball, it’s a long game, so she’s going to get a few blocks here and there.”

Mandee Roofe, still coming back from an ankle injury, had six kills and six blocks for Nikiski.

Kailey Stynsberg had 33 digs, while Evelyn Reichert had 13 digs. Baumer gave credit to Stynsberg, the libero, for consistently foiling strong SoHi attacks.

Avery Ellis had 18 assists, while Milly Hornung had 11 assists.

Segura remains very confident is her team and the team’s skill. She said the squad is just missing a piece mentally.

“As far as what people are saying to each other on the court, we’re asking the girls to basically not take anything that’s said personally,” she said. “Because everyone’s ultimately out there for the same goal.”

Nikiski travels to play Seward in Southcentral Conference action Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 5 p.m. The Bulldogs and Stars then play in the West Spiketacular on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 27 and 28.