THIS WEEK IN ALASKA ANCHORAGE VOLLEYBALL...
 
Friday, Aug. 27 — The Shark Tank — Honolulu, Hawaii — 9 pm ADT
Alaska Anchorage (0-0) at Hawaii Pacific (0-0)

Saturday, Aug. 28 — The Shark Tank — Honolulu, Hawaii — 2 pm ADT
Alaska Anchorage at Hawaii Pacific
 
Saturday, Aug. 28 — McCabe Gymnasium — Honolulu, Hawaii — 8 pm ADT
Alaska Anchorage at Chaminade (0-0, one match pending)
 
Sunday, Aug. 29 — McCabe Gymnasium — Honolulu, Hawaii — Noon ADT
Alaska Anchorage at Chaminade

NO FANS: Due to heightened COVID-19 restrictions in the state and Hawaii and the City of Honolulu, there will be no attendance for any of this weekend's matches.

LIVE VIDEO: HPU matches at portal.stretchinternet.com/hpusharks
                       Chaminade matches at portal.stretchinternet.com/chaminade
 
LIVE STATS: hpusharks.com/sidearmstats/wvball/summary
                       goswords.com/sidearmstats/wvball/summary
 
SOCIAL MEDIA: Check the @UAAVolleyball Twitter feed for in-match updates
 
UAA PROBABLE STARTERS (2020-21 stats)
S—Ellen Floyd, 5-10, Jr. (9.53 aps, 0.87 kps, .177 att%, 2.79 dps, 0.55 ace/set)
RS—Eve Stephens, 6-1, Jr. (4.21 kps, .303 att%, 2.45 dps, 0.71 bps, 0.42 ace/set)
MB—Mahala Kaapuni, 5-9, Fr. (1.39 kps, .225 att%, 0.79 bps)
MB—Vera Pluharova, 6-2, Sr. (1.79 kps, .238 att%, 0.97 bps)
OH—Nicole Blue, 5-9, Fr. (2.73 kps, .244 att%, 1.03 dps, 0.32 bps)
DS—Reilly Plumhoff, 5-5, Fr. (1.47 dps, 0.71 aps, 0.39 ace/set)
L—Talia Leauanae, 5-8, Jr. (3.89 dps, 0.53 aps)
 
THE SERIES...
vs HPU: HPU leads 8-3 overall, 4-3 in Honolulu
Streak: HPU 1
Last: HPU 3-0 (4-25-21 at Hilo)
Notes: UAA had won three straight (2009, 2011, 2016 – all at HPU) until HPU's neutral-court sweep in the 2021 spring season finale ... HPU took the first seven meetings (1981-2005) ... series started in 1981.
 
vs Chaminade: CU leads 13-12 overall, 6-5 in Honolulu
Streak: UAA 1
Last: UAA 3-0 (4-24-21 at Hilo)
Notes: UAA has won four of the last six since Chris Green took over as head coach in 2008 ... the last seven meetings have been played in Hawaii ... CU's 3-0 win in the last meeting at McCabe Gymnasium was one of just two regular-season losses UAA's suffered during its 2016 NCAA Runner-up season ... series started in 1989.
 
SCOUTING REPORT: All three Hawaii schools basically played a round robin schedule in the pandemic-shortened Spring 2021 campaign, with Chaminade going 6-8 and Hawaii Pacific going 2-12 ... in 2019, both clubs were playoff contenders, as Chaminade went 22-8 (16-6, 3rd Pac West) and HPU went 19-11 (15-7, t-4th Pac West).
 
2021 SPRING RECAP: The Seawolves put together an 11-4 record in the 2020-21 spring campaign, which was played in March and April ... there was no NCAA Championship last season for Div. II volleyball ... UAA went 1-1 against nationally ranked teams, splitting a pair of matches with No. 25 Hawaii Hilo ... among the nine GNAC teams that played in the spring, UAA led the league with a .238 attack percentage and 1.96 aces per set, and was second in assists per set (11.54) and kills per set (12.89) … individually, Jr. RS Eve Stephens led the GNAC with 4.16 kills per set, Jr. S Ellen Floyd was second in both assists (9.82) and aces (0.49) per set, Sr. MB Vera Pluharova ranked 7th in blocks per set (1.02) and  Jr. L Talia Leauanae was 8th in digs per set (3.91) ... UAA returns six of its seven (including libero) primary starters and loses just one other letterwinner from last year's team.
 
THE CHASE BEGINS: A mere 630 days after their last meaningful match – a 4-set loss to eventual national champ CSU San Bernardino in the NCAA Tournament Second Round on Dec. 6, 2019 – the Seawolves will take the court Friday in Honolulu for the first of four contests against Pacific West Conference opponents this weekend ... unlike the brief 2021 spring campaign, which didn't feature the carrot of postseason play, this fall's schedule is back to normal, with the Seawolves in pursuit of a Great Northwest Athletic Conference title and another NCAA berth ... UAA returns all but one starter from the team that went 11-4 last spring, including GNAC Preseason Player of the Year Eve Stephens and fellow preseason all-league pick Ellen Floyd ... Sr. MB Vera Pluharova returns for her fifth and final season, while Jr. L Talia Leauanae is back for her fourth campaign.
 
TIGHT RACE PREDICTED: The Seawolves were picked to repeat their second-place finish of 2019 in the 2021 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Preseason Coaches' Poll, released Aug. 16.
 
2021 GNAC Volleyball Preseason Coaches' Poll
Team (1st-place votes)     2019 Records       Pts
1. Western Washington (5)  27-3, 18-2 (1st)    95
2. Alaska Anchorage (5)    23-7, 17-3 (2nd)    92
3. Central Washington      18-11, 13-7 (t-3rd) 73
4. Alaska Fairbanks        15-13, 12-8 (5th)   66
5. Seattle Pacific         13-15, 10-10 (6th)  56
6. Simon Fraser            17-11, 13-7 (t-3rd) 54
7. Northwest Nazarene      13-14, 9-11 (t-7th) 47
8. Montana State Billings  8-22, 5-15 (9th)    35
9. Saint Martin's          1-28, 1-19 (11th)   21
10. Western Oregon         5-22, 3-17 (10th)   11
Points awarded on 11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis
 
TEAM NOTES: The Seawolves are pursuing their 14th consecutive winning season, trying to extend the program record that began with Chris Green's arrival at UAA in 2008 ... the Seawolves are 71-16 (.816) at the Alaska Airlines Center since its opening in Sept. 2014 and 118-28 (.808) at home since 2009; UAA has never lost consecutive matches at the Alaska Airlines Center ... UAA has reached the 20-win plateau 14 times in its 39 full seasons and seven times in 12 full seasons under Green ... UAA also enters the season with program-best streaks of 11 straight winning conference records and top-4 GNAC finishes ... the Seawolves are 20-14 against AVCA Top 25 teams since 2014 and 30-41 overall vs. ranked opponents under Green; prior to Green's arrival, UAA had lost 32 straight to ranked foes.
 
ROCKIN' EVE: Jr. RS Eve Stephens hopes to build on her already impressive credentials this year, heading into 2021 as the GNAC Preseason Player of the Year ... the Palmer (Colony HS) native was an AVCA Second Team All-American and claimed her second straight unanimous All-GNAC honor in 2019, following her GNAC Freshman of the Year award from 2018 ... Stephens led the GNAC in both kills and points per set in both 2019 and 2020-21, reaching the 1,000 career kills mark in the final match of the spring season ... Stephens recorded a team-high six double-doubles in just 15 matches in the spring to run her career total to 18, while on UAA's career lists she currently ranks 10th in kills (1,005), 3rd in kps (3.67), 7th in attack percentage (.288), 14th in block assists (205) and 17th in total blocks (219) ... a star in the classroom as well, Stephens was voted CoSIDA Academic All-District 8 in 2019 with her GNAC-best 4.00 GPA in accounting.
 
THE ELLEN SHOW: Jr. S Ellen Floyd engineered UAA's offensive improvement in 2019 to the reward of being tabbed First Team All-GNAC and AVCA honorable mention All-America, and this year she has already been tabbed a Preseason All-GNAC selection ... in the 2019 GNAC stats, Floyd ranked 2nd with 10.14 assists per set and 5th with 0.42 aces per set, bettering her assist average to 10.65 aps in GNAC matches ... with two full seasons remaining, Floyd is on pace to break UAA's all-time assists and aces records, already standing 6th with 2,616 assists ... she is 4th in Seawolf history in assists average (9.34 aps), 3rd in aces per set (0.407) and tied for 8th in total aces (114).
 
MORE 'WOLF BITES: Sr. MB Vera Pluharova continued her career-long improvement last spring and enters her fourth season as one of the top middle blockers in the West Region ... in her second year as a starter in 2019, Pluharova ranked 3rd in the GNAC and 21st nationally with 1.25 blocks per set ... the Czech recorded at least 6 kills on .300 hitting in seven matches that season, including 9 kills (.438) in the road sweep of Concordia and a career-high 11 kills (.474) in the 5-set win over UAF ... Pluharova ranks 5th on UAA's career list in blocks per set (1.13), plus 6th in block assists (300) and 8th in total blocks (333) ... the Seawolves are well stocked at the libero and DS positions again in 2021, with Jr. Talia Leauanae joined by redshirt freshman Reilly Plumhoff ... Leauanae ranked 12th in the GNAC with 3.68 digs per set in 2019, with efforts of 28 digs in the loss to Simon Fraser, 17 digs in the home upset of Western Washington, 24 in the win over UAF and 21 in the road win at NNU ... meanwhile, Plumhoff premiered with an impressive 2021 spring campaign, with 1.88 dps, a team-best .935 reception pct., and 0.35 aces per set (3rd on team) ... the local Dimond High product was huge in UAA's 5-set win over Hawaii Hilo, producing a season-high 20 digs ... UAA will have a new look at outside hitter this year, with freshmen Nicole Blue and Mahala Kaapuni vying for opportunities alongside sophomore transfer Lisa Jaunet ... Blue and Kaapuni both saw valuable action in the spring, playing in all 15 matches ... Blue was second on the team in with 2.37 kps and hit a solid .205, while Kaapuni -- playing mostly as a middle blocker -- recorded numbers of 1.79 kps, .245 attack pct., and 0.69 bps ... Jaunet, meanwhile, comes north from State College of Florida, where she produced 301 career kills in 45 matches ... originally from St. Denis, France, she averaged 2.71 kps on .196 hitting in 2020-21, earning Second Team All- Suncoast Conference honors.
 
GREEN MACHINE: Having led UAA to an unprecedented 13 straight winning seasons, UAA head coach Chris Green (267-101, .726) has established himself as the most successful coach in program history and one of the top mentors in the NCAA Div. II ranks, earning his fifth GNAC Coach of the Year award in 2019 ('09, '13, '15, '16) ... the 2016 AVCA D-II National Coach of the Year and 3-time AVCA D-II West Region Coach of the Year (2009, '15, '16), Green has led UAA to NCAA Tournament berths in eight of the last 10 full seasons, capturing No. 1 seeds in 2015 and 2016, and piloting the Seawolves to the national title match in 2016 ... in the 28 years before Green's arrival, the Seawolves made just two NCAA appearances ... UAA has won at a .779 clip (176-50) since the start of the 2013 campaign, including .828 (111-23) in league play ... Green's UAA teams have produced eight All-Americans, five GNAC Players of the Year, six GNAC Newcomers of the Year and five GNAC Freshmen of the Year ... hired in Feb. 2008 as the sixth coach in UAA Volleyball history, Green spent the previous nine seasons (1999-07) as the head coach at Western Nebraska Community College, where he built a powerhouse program ... among his list of accomplishments at WNCC were a 453-55 record, the 2007 NJCAA Div. I national championship, 2006 NJCAA runner-up, and four straight 'Final 4' berths ...  the Cougars finished in the top 10 at the national tournament in all of Green's seasons, producing a total of 10 first-team and six second-team All-America certificates ... in 2011, he was inducted into the NJCAA Hall of Fame.