{"id":15089,"date":"2016-09-12T23:11:39","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T06:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/falcons-volleyball-leave-ketchikan-with-a-win\/"},"modified":"2016-09-12T23:11:39","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T06:11:39","slug":"falcons-volleyball-leave-ketchikan-with-a-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/falcons-volleyball-leave-ketchikan-with-a-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcons volleyball leave Ketchikan with a win"},"content":{"rendered":"

KETCHIKAN \u2014 <\/strong>It was a tough night for the Lady Kings on Saturday at the Clarke Cochrane Gymnasium. After barely falling in the first set to Thunder Mountain 25-23, the Lady Kings dropped the next two sets by wider margins, 25-19 and 25-12.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe girls weren\u2019t mentally prepared at all from the beginning of the night,\u201d Kayhi head coach Naomi Michalsen said. \u201cNone of us showed up. We have some great athletes but they weren\u2019t prepared at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thunder Mountain head coach Arnold Ibias said his team held a players-only meeting following Friday\u2019s match, a five-set Kayhi victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe girls had a talk and decided last night that was not the way they wanted to lose,\u201d Ibias said. \u201c(On Friday), Ketchikan picked us apart. They were very smart with their hitters and we were very flat-footed. They saw that and took advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lady Kings earned a series split with the Lady Falcons after earning a win in Friday\u2019s match three sets to two. Kayhi is now 2-2 on the season, winning one match and losing one against 4A Southeast opponents Juneau-Douglas and Thunder Mountain.<\/p>\n

Ketchikan also honored seniors Kreylynn Johnson, Kassi Montero, Kinani Halvorsen, Havalah Clark and Sherrine Bautista in a senior night ceremony before Saturday\u2019s match.<\/p>\n

Thunder Mountain\u2019s Marissa Tanuvasa-Tuvaifale led the Lady Falcons in serving and excelled in the front of the net as a blocker and a hitter. Kayhi struggled returning serves all evening, especially in the second set, when the Lady Falcons recorded three aces as part of a 10-4 run to begin the set.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir serves took a toll on us,\u201d Michalsen said. \u201cThey don\u2019t miss much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kayhi found itself down 17-6 before climbing back into contention. The Lady Kings closed the gap all the way to 23-18 before Thunder Mountain scored two more points to take the second set 25-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cThunder Mountain played some great defense,\u201d Michalsen said. \u201cWe made some changes in the middle of the match and some of those things didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

After dropping a close first set and falling short in their comeback bid in the second set, the Lady Kings looked defeated in the third set, dropping it quickly 25-12.<\/p>\n

Ibias said there are a couple new players on varsity this season, but the returning players with varsity experience helped the team take a step forward from last season. He said the biggest challenge Thunder Mountain faces this year is making sure it brings its best to every match.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we hold ourselves together and play our game, we\u2019ll be victorious,\u201d Ibias said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t play our game, this year especially, it could be any one of us, Juneau-Douglas, Ketchikan or us, it\u2019s going to be any team that brings their best that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michalsen also said the conference looks to be competitive between all three teams this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a good battle,\u201d she said. \u201cThe weekend off will give us time to recooperate but also it is a time to practice. I think we need to work on our mental game and our defense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KETCHIKAN \u2014 It was a tough night for the Lady Kings on Saturday at the Clarke Cochrane Gymnasium. After barely falling in the first set to Thunder Mountain 25-23, the Lady Kings dropped the next two sets by wider margins, 25-19 and 25-12. \u201cThe girls weren\u2019t mentally prepared at all from the beginning of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-15089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15089"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}