The Dimond High School volleyball team placed first at State for the third consecutive time, without a single game lost in the tournament.

The state tournament took place at West Anchorage High School, beginning on Nov. 9 and ending on Nov. 11.

After the multiple losses that took place at regions, Dimond seemingly had a long road filled with a lot of hard work ahead of them in order to become state champions for the third year in a row.

However, the Lady Lynx went through the state tournament, eventually beating Bartlett in the final game in five sets on Nov. 11.

Senior Delaney Gill, a setter, said, “Our main goal [was] obviously to win the championship, but we’re really just here to play our hearts out for the last couple days of season.”

Similarly, Plumhoff said, “We have the same goal as always, which is to be state champions. We talked about how great it feels and hopefully we motivated the team to come out and leave it all on the court.”

After their losses at Regions, the lynx knew that they had to use what they had learned in order to succeed at state.

Osborne said, “We learned that we need to stay together as a team through the tough losses. We have to be able to earn every point that we can in order to win.”

Lauwers said, “Our focus going into State is to play our best as a team.”

Similarly to Lauwers, Plumhoff said, “We’ve all learned that there are good competitors out there and wins won’t be handed to us easily. We need to work hard, try our best and have fun.”

A few weeks prior to State, the DHS Lady Lynx placed third at the Cook Inlet Conference (CIC) for volleyball regions.

Dimond took their first loss against the East High School T-birds on Nov. 1 in a five set match. However, the Lady Lynx were not yet eliminated from winning regions or being able to make it to the state tournament.

This first loss took a toll on the team, as they then had to be sure to win the rest of their games if they wanted to be able to play in the CIC championship match. The team had to come together to discuss errors that had been made in hopes to fix them in the upcoming matches.

     Junior Jalyn Osborne, a setter on the team, said, “This loss was due to bad communication and the fact that East made less errors and fundamental mistakes.”

Though they had lost, the Lady Lynx were still motivated to work their way back up through the bracket and attempt to win the CIC title.

Varsity Coach Kim Lauwers said, “Losing is never easy, but always provides an opportunity to learn and grow. We always strive to focus on the positive and fight back.”

Osborne said, “It definitely gave us a reality check and fired us up to play in the next games.”

Dimond then went on to beat South in their next game. This loss for South meant that they were now unable to go to the state tournament.

In their following game on Nov. 4, Dimond unfortunately lost to East and were subsequently unable to take the CIC crown.

Lauwers said, “We just made a few more errors than they did that night. We only lost by a few points. Our conference is pretty tough and filled with strong teams that will fight hard each match.”

Referring to the initial loss against East, Junior Reilly Plumhoff, one of the captains of the team, said, “Once we started to fall behind, we fell apart and couldn’t recover.”

Bartlett then went on to beat East and gain the CIC title for the first time since 1983. This was the first time that a team other than South or Dimond had taken the CIC title since 2009, according to ADN.