September 25th & 26th, 2026
Submitted by VHS JV Volleyball Coach
The Buccaneer JV volleyball team travelled to the valley to compete in the Wasilla JV Volleyball Showdown this weekend. The 14 teams that competed in the tournament were: Wasilla, Eagle River, Nikiski, Kodiak, Colony, Kenai, East, MCCA, Soldotna, Valdez, Grace, Palmer, Homer, and Houston. The teams were divided up into 4 pools to sort out the competition. On Friday, Valdez played each team in their pool (Soldotna Stars and the Grace Christian Grizzlies) and a cross-pool game against the Houston Hawks. Each of these was 2 sets to 25. On Saturday morning, Valdez played another cross-pool game against the Eagle River Wolves. The Lady Buc’s goal for the weekend was to have enough wins in the pool play to qualify for Saturday’s Gold Division Bracket, which was where the top 8 teams competed for the Championship.
For the first two sets of the night, Valdez played against the Soldotna Stars. The Stars’ team was tall and confident on the net and put up double blocks wherever Valdez hit from. The blocks proved to be a challenge for the Bucs as they had a tricky time with coverage around their hitters and lost several points that way. The Bucs fought until the end but lost both sets 13-25 against the Stars. The next 2 sets against the Grace Grizzlies went quick and resulted in two wins (25-11, 25-6). The Bucs were able to go on a few serving streaks which held the Grizzlies at bay and allowed them to hold a strong lead the whole time. Backrow passer Sophia Malcuit shined during these sets with several excellent passes and Airoh Smelcer came away with some great kills from the outside. Top servers were Kristen Fitka, Madi Wesely and Savannah Hammerly. To finish the night, the Lady Bucs played the Houston Hawks in the cross-pool match up and came out on top with a win from each set (25-16, 25-22).
Airoh
On Saturday morning the pool play finished up with Valdez playing against the Eagle River Wolves. Valdez came onto the court ready for action–their communication was on point and their backrow passers were super scrappy. Lexi Passin was formidable as the middle hitter and came away with several impressive kills- one of which was an overpass from the Wolves that she slammed down to the ground.
The Bucs came away from the pool play with 6 wins and 2 losses which helped them reach their goal of earning a spot in Gold Division Bracket as the 5th seed. To start the single elimination bracket play, the Bucs faced a tough rematch against the Soldotna Stars. Once again, the Stars came out with strategic hitting and found all of our openings on the court. Our girls scrambled to adjust to the Stars’ offense and tough blocking and ultimately fell to them in two sets (18-25, 14-25) which knocked them out of the tournament. Overall, it was a great weekend and the Lady Bucs JV Volleyball team should be proud of how well they played. We faced some much bigger and experienced teams but still met our team goal of making it into the Gold Division as one of the top 8 teams of the tournament. Airoh Smelcer was recognized for her overall strong and consistent play for the weekend with an All Tournament Award. The Lady Bucs have no games scheduled for this coming weekend. The JV team will travel to Anchorage to play in a tournament at Lumen Christi on October 9th and 10th.