Sports

Inaugural Alaska Volleyball Day on Saturday features state championships and UAA’s ‘Pack the House’ night against UAF

In late August 2023, Nebraska held “Volleyball Day in Nebraska,” a daylong celebration of the sport that culminated with a match between the University of Nebraska and University of Omaha.

The event was a screaming success, breaking the record for the world’s most-attended women’s sporting event with the teams competing in front of 92,000 fans at Memorial Stadium, a facility that hosts the Cornhuskers football team.

Taking a cue from her home state of Nebraska, UAA head volleyball coach Stacie Meisner has launched a similar concept to Alaska. The inaugural “Alaska Volleyball Day” on Saturday will feature state championship matches at the ASAA 4A and 3A levels as well as UAA facing off with UAF in a collegiate matchup to close out the night.

“I have family that went to that event,” she said. “That was a really exciting thing for volleyball just across the country.”

Meisner realized UAA was scheduled to play at UAF on the Saturday when the state championships were set to be contested in Anchorage. After talking to the UAA administration, UAF head coach Brian Scott and ASAA, the plan was put into motion.

“I think it’s an exciting thing for volleyball here in Alaska to have the best schools from the state in 3A and 4A competing here in Anchorage this weekend,” Meisner said. “And then to follow that up with UAA versus UAF, kind of our classic in state rivalry and some really high-level college volleyball.”

Wasilla head coach Katie Oxspring said some of her players don’t have a lot of exposure to high-level volleyball and expects Saturday will be a great experience for her team.

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“I know when I have freshmen and we’re able to go to a game as a program,” Oxspring said. “I love when their eyes just get huge like big saucers. The game is so fast and they jump so high and it’s just a level above what we play. It’s so cool to be exposed to that higher level of volleyball.”

The final matchup is a “Pack the House” night for the Seawolves. In 2022 when UAA hosted a similar night, the team broke the Division II single-game attendance record with 3,888. But last year, that record was broken by University of Nebraska at Kearney in the team’s home opener.

Now the Seawolves are shooting to get 4,004 people in the door to break the record again and return it to UAA.

“We really wanted to be intentional this year with doing ‘Pack the House’ night that was set on breaking that record,” Meisner said.

With 16 high school teams in town on top of the usual collection of volleyball fans, the Seawolves will have a good chance to reclaim the mark. The 3A title is at 1 p.m., the 4A title starts at 3 p.m. while the UAA-UAF game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

Tickets for the “Pack the House” game are $5 and available at GoSeawolves.com. Starting at 6 p.m., there is a pregame party at the Alaska Airlines Center auxiliary gymnasium with games, prizes and giveaways.

At both the 4A and 3A levels, the defending champions have made a strong case for entering the tournament as favorites.

Wasilla, which won the 2023 D-I title in convincing fashion, has won its last 14 matches and hasn’t lost in six weeks.

The Warriors have yet to lose a best-of-5 match this year. That’s the format that is played at state.

“It would be ridiculous for me not to be thinking about the fact that we just have a huge target on our back,” Oxspring said. “Everyone is going to want to beat us. Everyone’s gonna want to see someone beat us, so there is a little bit of that kind of pressure on us. But hopefully we’ve given the girls the tools to not worry about that so much and just play for each other and have fun with it.”

In 3A, Kenai Central’s only losses in the last month have come to 4A teams. The Kardinals have faced some good competition at the 3A level, most notably against Nikiski. The teams faced off twice during last weekend’s Southcentral Conference tournament with Kenai taking both matches by 3-2 scores.

4A Volleyball Tournament

Thursday

First round

Lathrop vs. South Anchorage, 10 a.m.

Wasilla vs. Chugiak, 11:45 p.m.

Juneau-Douglas vs. Service, 1:30 p.m.

Dimond vs. Soldotna, 3:15 p.m.

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3A Volleyball Tournament

Thursday

First round

Kenai Central vs. Monroe Catholic,10 a.m.

Sitka vs. Kotzebue, 11:45 p.m.

Barrow vs. Seward, 1:30 p.m.

Valdez vs. Nikiski, 3:15 p.m.

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Chris Bieri

Chris Bieri is the sports and entertainment editor at the Anchorage Daily News.

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