Leaning on a young nucleus, Dimond volleyball is off to a strong start to 2024 season

Last season, the Dimond High volleyball team failed to advance to the 4A state finals for the first time since 2019. But this season, the Lynx are looking like one of the prime contenders in the Last Frontier yet again with an overall record of 16-1 and 4-0 in Cook Inlet Conference play.

“(Making the state championship) is always a goal of ours, but our main goal is to get better week by week so that we’re playing our best by the end of the year,” Dimond head coach Kim Lauwers said.

The Lynx swept defending 4A state champion Wasilla in the finals of the Chugiak Invitational tournament to start the season and faced their toughest test yet Tuesday night. They went on the road and beat Service in their first five-set match of the season, taking a 3-2 (16-25, 25-15, 21-25, 25-16, 15-11) win.

“I was hoping it would be a good game because Service is a good team, they’ve got a lot of players back and I was hoping that we would be able to play with them,” Lauwers said.

This year’s team is “pretty young” compared to some of her more recent veteran rosters, with one freshman, six sophomores, three juniors and just four seniors.

Dimond returned just six players from last year’s varsity team, including a pair who are now sophomores. Two of the core leaders are senior libero Eleasha Sapon and senior middle/outside hitter Sarah Dittman.

“Those two are our captains and great leaders for us,” Lauwers said. “(Senior hitter) Mecca Goldsberry and (junior setter) Grace Petru as well.”

To see them best a more experienced Cougars squad in an away game that went the distance was an evolution in that goal of constant improvement.

“You could see that on any given night that anything could happen,” Lauwers said. “I think we’re learning every day. That was our first time in that situation.”

She believes that the environment of playing in front of another highly competitive team’s home crowd had her players “shellshocked,” but she was proud of how they were able to regroup.

“It felt like we were playing the same team,” Lauwers said. “When they were up, we were down and we were up, they were down, so we are very similar teams to each other.”

The player who came up clutch with the match-clinching kill against Service was Dimond sophomore Piper Botson, who was recently brought up from junior varsity. Lauwers said that’s indicative of the balance on the team.

“With our team, it’s somebody different every night,” Lauwers said. “We’re trying to build the strength and depth of our team.”

Botson said there were points when the team grew nervous as some sets got tight, but their drive to remain undefeated in regular-season play before their trip to California motivated them even more.

“We practiced hard for this, we practiced mental toughness, we knew Service was going to be a good team to play against and we knew it was going to be a battle,” Botson said.

The Lynx will be back in action aiming to stay undefeated in the CIC next week when they continue with consecutive away games against Chugiak, Eagle River and Bettye Davis East Anchorage before hosting the Cougars for a rematch Oct. 1.