Petersburg High School hosted its first home volleyball tournament since the pandemic last weekend. It was a smaller affair than their regular tournaments — two teams from Thunder Mountain High School and one from Juneau-Douglas came down to rally with the Vikings.
Petersburg had just enough players to split into three teams: two JV teams — blue and black — and the varsity team. Petersburg Black took two wins and four losses, and Petersburg Blue took one win and five losses. The varsity Vikings cleaned up over the weekend, with four wins and zero losses.
Coach Jamie Cabral ran down the weekend with KFSK’s Shelby Herbert. He said it felt amazing to have both courts going at the same time again.
…They just got a ton of court time, which is what they need. The girls are just doing great. We have a young core — three total seniors in the program. Everyone else is underclassmen, so [we have] a really young core coming through. Just getting them core time is really, really important. They were at Ketchikan the week before, and got some of them their first high school game ever with how many freshmen we have — and they played great down there. We saw improvement from weekend to weekend, which is phenomenal. Our JV kids are getting a lot of core time that they’ve been missing out on — some of our sophomores, they have a total of four games under their belt in their high school career, and they’ve been in high school for two years! And so, not every 2A team has a JV, so we’re like one of the largest 2A schools that have students participating, which is fantabulous!
Our varsity team, they’re a special group right now — they work together, they set some goals that they want to accomplish throughout the year. We weren’t really sure what to expect, and [to] kind of see the way they flow — it’s an amazing group of young young women and they’re just clicking right now, which is good. But we want them to make sure that we’re not peaking yet. So, we have this theme: it’s the never ending ladder. So, get the next rung up, and just keep climbing until we hit goals along the way.
Any star performances?
Oh man, so many of them. Our varsity group is amazing. The leadership — I cannot thank them enough. From Brianna Ratliff and Anya Pawuk — their senior leadership. Not just because it’s their senior year, but also because they put so much into the program. They want success, and they’re feeling it right now because they work hard every single day. [When] they come in, it’s like the best two hours of the day, when we’re at practice with them.
But our setter group is pretty phenomenal, too, with Sara Eszik, who is our Hungarian exchange student, and Anya Pawuk: they run the offense and they do a great job. It’s kind of like they’ve been playing for years together — but they’ve only known each other for about a month and a half. So, [it’s] pretty fun watching them play on the court. Brianna Ratliff, Elizabeth Burns, Miranda Carr. Our [outside hitters] are doing an amazing job, taking care of the ball, passing well. Our serving is the best I’ve seen in years. Our defensive specialists — they’re passing the ball well and playing great defense. And our middles — we kind of roll our offense through them and they’ve been just phenomenal and great along the way. But our whole group, all the girls continue to work hard and show up every day, which is fabulous.
Awesome, Jamie. Any final thoughts?
Yeah, I gotta thank Coach [Kerri] Curtiss, my assistant coach this year. This is her first year as an assistant coach and she has just been a blessing to have on the court. She’s just super supportive. [This is her] first year coaching here at the high school. She’s coached basketball before, but it’s her first time with volleyball and she’s really wrapped into the program and bought into the culture. Her support has just been amazing this year, so [I feel] really appreciative that she’s out there with us.
Petersburg’s volleyball teams will get a break this weekend — then the varsity girls will travel to Anchorage the following weekend for another tournament.
