Brewed with blood, sweat and tears since early September, the volleyball showdown between Juneau-Douglas High School and Thunder Mountain High School is finally ready to serve: the teams will clash for their last two conference games this weekend to decide Region V\u2019s top seed.<\/p>\n
The recipe for the season-ending nailbiter serves a packed gymnasium: take two teams from one town, apply talent evenly and simmer in a pressure cooker for two matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a tough battle for the No. 1 seed,\u201d Thunder Mountain High School junior middle hitter Mary Landez said. \u201cThis weekend is really going to test our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a game between our mindsets, who\u2019s gonna be there and who\u2019s not. We have to be very focused,\u201d Juneau-Douglas senior setter Patricia Enriquez said at a Wednesday practice.<\/p>\n
Thunder Mountain and Juneau-Douglas, both boasting conference-leading 4-2 records, stand knotted at the top of the Southeast Conference 4A standings above 2-6 Ketchikan. The outcome of this weekend\u2019s games \u2014 one at TMHS, another at JDHS \u2014 determines the top seed at the Region V Tournament, a distinction that includes a crucial opening round bye.<\/p>\n
If previous contests between the two teams are any indication of what to expect this weekend, volleyball fans are in for two tight matches. The teams split two early season bouts with TMHS coming out on top 3-2 in a Sept. 16 game (13-25, 25-15, 25-12, 20-25 and 15-10) and JDHS besting the Falcons 3-1 on Sept. 17 (25-19, 16-25, 14-25, 23-25).<\/p>\n
Since last facing each other, each team has had time to push their game to the limits, leaving their rivals wondering what to expect from their peaking opponents. Thunder Mountain has been practicing new sets, or positional schemes, they hope will catch JDHS off guard this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of new stuff we are going to be doing, a lot that we are going to have to work out,\u201d Landez said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working really hard this week in practice trying to work the bugs out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am really happy with where we\u2019re at,\u201d Ibias said. \u201cBut this weekend we have to play error-free, that\u2019s been one of our weaknesses. We\u2019ll have the momentum and then serve the ball into the net and give them two points right after that. Juneau is too good to let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
JDHS varsity coach Leslie Kalbrener said her team has steadily built the mindset \u2014 and the defense \u2014 to win both these games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve definitely come a long way, we\u2019ve been working on our passing and our coverage and that\u2019s where it all starts,\u201d Kalbrener said. \u201cThunder Mountain tends to bring out the best in us. Our challenge against them will be keeping a lead. We tend to slow up three quarters of the way through a match and we can\u2019t do that against them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Falcons host Friday\u2019s varsity game at 8 p.m. The Crimson Bears will finish their season at home by hosting the Falcons Saturday for a 6 p.m. match. Both matches will begin with senior night honors.<\/p>\n
The Region V tournament takes place next weekend in Sitka.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tiebreakers<\/strong><\/p>\n If the teams split this weekend, the conference lead will come down to a few tiebreakers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all going to come down to numbers,\u201d Ibias said, explaining that, in the event of a match record tie, the team that has a better game record will earn the distinction of the No. 1 seed (the best team in three of five games wins a match; games are played to 25 points). \u201cWe beat them in five games (earlier this year), so if we split this weekend, we would need to win in three and lose in no less than four.\u201d<\/p>\n In that scenario, JDHS and TMHS would tie in match and game records. The No. 1 seed would then be determined by point differential against each other.<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact Sports and Outdoors reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brewed with blood, sweat and tears since early September, the volleyball showdown between Juneau-Douglas High School and Thunder Mountain High School is finally ready to serve: the teams will clash for their last two conference games this weekend to decide Region V\u2019s top seed. The recipe for the season-ending nailbiter serves a packed gymnasium: take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":9634,"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-9633","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\/9633","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=9633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9633"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}