Everything clicked for the Crimson Bears spikers this weekend as they closed their regular season with two decisive wins over Thunder Mountain High School, earning the No. 1 seed at next weekend\u2019s Region V tournament.<\/p>\n
Juneau-Douglas High School showed superior strength in front of the attack line, taking the game to the Falcons, who despite showing glimpses of parity in their game over the weekend, were overwhelmed by JDHS\u2019 firepower.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re at a higher level now, lots of things are clicking,\u201d middle hitter Cassie Dzinich said after she helped her team to a four-set Saturday night win. \u201cPeople are just getting their hit down, their timing right and moving their feet. Everything is just clicking. \u2026 It feels faster, like there\u2019s more energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
JDHS clinched the No. 1 seed with their second win on the weekend, a Saturday night win in which they overtook the Falcons in four games 25-12, 22-25, 25-21 and 25-22.<\/p>\n
The absence of hitter Maxie Saceda-Hurtte was a key difference in the Falcons\u2019 defeat, as the Crimson Bears often imposed their will at the net, blocking and hitting with a skill and strength varsity coach Lesley Kalbrener said was \u201cunparalleled\u201d in her time with the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got middle hitters hitting three different sets out of the middle and it has been years since that\u2019s happened for this program,\u201d Kalbrener said. \u201c… Our serving is aggressive and tough, our ace percentage is extremely high compared to the beginning of the season and defensively I think we\u2019re doing things I didn\u2019t think we would see.\u201d<\/p>\n
After taking a bruising in the first game of Saturday\u2019s match, Thunder Mountain woke up in the second game by harnessing the energy and net play of middle hitter Kyra Jenkins. The Falcons took game two, tying the score 1-1, and came alive with their backs against the wall, but couldn\u2019t rally comebacks in games three or four.<\/p>\n
Jenkins says her team wanted the match badly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe noticed what we were doing wrong in the first game, we really wanted to win this match,\u201d Jenkins said, citing communication issues in the back row as a factor in the loss.<\/p>\n
The weekend\u2019s matches settled the No. 1 seed in the conference, which brings with it a first-round bye in the Region V tournament. After finishing their regular season on top, JDHS (6-2) will face the winner of Ketchikan (2-6) and Thunder Mountain (4-4) at regions Nov. 4-5 in Sitka.<\/p>\n
\nFriday\u2019s match<\/strong><\/p>\n JDHS took Friday\u2019s match in three sets (13-25, 14-25, 24-26), playing some of their best volleyball of the season by out-hitting Thunder Mountain and dominating in front of the attack line.<\/p>\n Kalbrener predicted the Crimson Bears\u2019 ability to hold onto leads would be a key to the weekend\u2019s contests. Her prognostication bore out in the first two games as JDHS put ample distance between themselves and the Falcons to set up the straight-set win.<\/p>\n With the third game tied 24-24, Thunder Mountain came close to forcing a fourth game, but couldn\u2019t find the breaks they needed down the stretch. The Falcons suffered a block by JDHS hitter Cassie Dzinich to put the Crimson Bears at game point before the away team closed the match with a 24-26, game-three win.<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact Sports and Outdoors reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everything clicked for the Crimson Bears spikers this weekend as they closed their regular season with two decisive wins over Thunder Mountain High School, earning the No. 1 seed at next weekend\u2019s Region V tournament. Juneau-Douglas High School showed superior strength in front of the attack line, taking the game to the Falcons, who despite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":34304,"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-34303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34303","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34303"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=34303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}