Nanooks beat Kotzebue Huskies in volleyball games

By Lizzy Hahn
Last Friday, September 17 and Saturday, September 18, the Nome-Beltz High School hosted the Kotzebue volleyball team for two days of games.
Kotzebue brought their junior varsity and varsity teams. On Friday, the JV teams competed against one another in two sets. They were playing best 2-out-of-3 sets. The Nome JV team took the win with two sets won and one lost. After the JV game, the varsity teams played against each other, playing best 3-out-of-5 sets. Nome won three sets.
On Saturday, the JV team got split into the C-team and B-team, both competing against Kotzebue playing best 2-out-of-3 sets. The Kotzebue JV team beat the Nome JV C-team 2-0, winning two sets. The Nome JV B-team won 2-1, winning two sets and losing one. The Nome varsity team beat the Kotzebue varsity team yet again on Saturday. The varsity girls won 3-0, winning three sets.
When asked about how the season has been so far, volleyball coach Veronica Alviso said, “We’re off to a good start. Our season started with Varsity traveling to Fairbanks the last weekend of August. We won our first match against Eielson. We also had an opportunity to play against two 4A teams (North Pole and Lathrop), unfortunately we lost but stayed competitive and gained valuable experience. Since then, both varsity and JV teams have had multiple victories over Kotzebue. Each team won two matches in Kotzebue last week and two matches here in Nome this weekend.”
Coach Alviso also said, “Overall I’m proud of how our team played this weekend. Every match the teams are improving, we still have to work on minimizing errors, but there’s definitely progress happening. In volleyball the momentum can change very quickly; we celebrate every victory: point, set and match.”
Next weekend, the varsity team will travel to Cordova to compete in the Cordova River Rally.