Copyright Anchorage Daily News
Extended win streaks at the high school level can be difficult to sustain for myriad reasons. It takes discipline, focus, attention to detail and, most importantly, a total team effort. That last ingredient has been especially vital to the commanding 2025 campaign of the South Anchorage volleyball team. The Wolverines boast the longest win streak in the state at 27 in a row to close out the regular season, and they enter postseason play this week as the unquestionable cream of the crop. “It takes every single one of us to be successful,” head coach Julie Kleven said. “We’ve never been about one player, and one thing that has been really special about this team is that’s what they hold true to themselves.” From the starters to the bench players and coaches, the Wolverines believe everyone contributes to every win and every loss. They haven’t had to experience the latter in over a month and a half, however. Through the course of the season, they’ve lost just three times, with only one loss coming at the hands of an in-state opponent. Kleven’s daughter Ellie along with fellow seniors Ellie Birch and Meadow Carr are the team’s three co-captains, with each specializing in a different essential leadership trait. “We each kind of have our roles, and my role from what I’ve been told is that I lead by example,” Ellie said. “Meadow is a good verbal motivator, and Ellie (Birch) is a good calming person on the court.” Kleven took over the program last year but has been coaching her daughter since Ellie was in kindergarten. For a few other players on the team, Julie was their first volleyball coach — and now, for most of them, she’ll also be their last. “This is a special group,” Julie said. “They’re all friends, they genuinely love each other and play for each other.” Coming to terms with the inevitable Last Tuesday, the Wolverines hosted rival Service in the regular season finale. It was an emotional night because they all knew what it signaled. After jumping out to an early two-set lead, they dropped the third and bounced back to win it in the fourth. “It feels great but also really sad to know that it’s my last days with the best team that I have ever had,” senior outside hitter Indy Kmet said. “They’re my family and I love them so much.” Some of players started as early as kindergarten playing together, and Julie Kleven said that to have watched them develop as athletes and blossom into young women has been one of the greatest joys of her life. “You never think it’s going to end, but tonight it was very apparent that we’re close to the end,” she said. “There was a lot of emotion at the beginning of the match, and I was very proud of how they started the game.” Ellie Kleven said the team was in a heightened emotional state before the game but didn’t think they let it affect how they came out swinging. “I think we could’ve done better, but it feels good to win,” she said. Staying grounded despite riding high It can be hard to maintain a team’s focus when they aren’t challenged as regularly, but Julie and her staff have emphasized the importance of being consistently dominant so that the occasional slip-up or lost set doesn’t snowball and cost them a match. “When we win the first two sets, we tend to get a little complacent in the third set,” she said. That’s what she believed happened against Service in the finale, but her team was able to lock back in and stave off the Cougars in the fourth to avoid a loss. “We weren’t expecting it,” Ellie said. “In the fourth set, we had to push extra hard. It’s unusual for us to lose momentum like that but I think we handled it pretty well.” Learning those kinds of lessons when they’re less consequential in the regular season as opposed to the postseason will aid them in their pursuit of a regional title, and hopefully a state championship. “It’s tough to keep them focused and keep our goals in mind and try to play every point with that mentality,” Julie said. “As we go into regions, we know that we have a huge target on our back and we need to stay tough mentally and focus on the goals that we have.” The importance of being process-oriented instead of results-driven is also a key point that’s constantly reinforced by the coaches. Improving every time they touch the court for matches and practices alike has been the main goal. That approach has carried this team on a long, impressive run. Kmet has embodied that practice more than most. The star outside hitter racked up a team-leading 468 regular-season kills, which is more than double the next closest member of the team. She’s also third on the team in digs and assists with 227 and 23, respectively. “She’s one of those kids where it’s once in a lifetime to get to coach someone like her,” Julie said. “She’s just so strong and powerful, smart, and she has made such a difference this year for us getting better and better every time she steps on the court.” An enjoyable family affair When her mom first came on as the head coach during her junior season, Ellie described it as “definitely interesting” and admittedly awkward at first — but it has been a better experience than she could’ve imagined. “She does a really good job of separating mom life from coach life,” she said. “When we go home, we both make an effort not to talk about volleyball, and when we come to practice, she makes an effort not to treat me like a daughter, which I really appreciate because a lot of times, things can get lost and the border between the two gets blurred.” The additional time they spend together during and outside practice, games and travel hasn’t put a strain on their relationship. “We usually don’t take it home with us and try to keep it all in the gym,” Julie said. “She takes my feedback very well, and she’s had such excellent coaches in her life previous to me taking over this program, so she had a great base of knowledge and I don’t have to get after her too much.”
