The UAA Seawolves hosted a party for 4,388 of their closest friends at the Alaska Airlines Center on Saturday night, blowing the NCAA Division II regular-season volleyball attendance record out of the water at the inaugural Alaska Volleyball Day.

You couldn’t help but get chills when the lights dimmed, spotlights roaming over the crowd while the Seawolves’ hype reel rolled. It started to sink in for the Seawolves too, said UAA senior middle blocker Leilani Elder.

“Pregame, I was just in my head trying to get ready, and once I really stepped out, and after they called my name, I was like, ‘OK, it’s for real now. People really care,’” said Elder.

“I come from Kansas City. Everybody’s pretty divided, everybody’s competing to get to the best schools,” she added. “And so to be in a community now where it feels really like everybody’s cheering everybody else on, it’s so special, and it’s such a great opportunity to experience and be a part of.”

Even for the visiting Nanooks’ squad walking into their rival’s house, the atmosphere couldn’t be beat.

“Before we were going out, we saw the crowd and we saw the energy, and we told ourselves, this is a privilege to do this,” said UAF junior setter Ainsley Smith after the Nanooks’ 25-18, 25-16, 26-24 victory. “Not a lot of teams in Division II get crowds this huge.”

Before the match, a party welcomed eager spectators to tables stacked with pompoms, soda and chicken finger giveaways, a tumbling course with the Seawolf gymnastics squad, and even bounce houses.

Bianca Kahunanui stood at the poster-making table with a few friends, penning signs for Seawolf outside hitter Tia Allen.

“I just like watching her play,” said Kahunanui, who’s on the Bartlett Golden Bears volleyball team. “She looks good when she plays, she looks like she’s really into it.”

A crowd of young volleyball players decked out in Romig Middle School purple sat courtside, hyping up Nanooks players during warm-ups with cheers and high-fives.

Romig volleyball coach Emily Lawrence said they brought as many of the program’s 218 girls as possible to Saturday’s match to build camaraderie before their first games next week.

“Hopefully it’ll inspire them to do their best,” Lawrence said, later adding, “Definitely want them to feel empowered and feel like they can do anything they want to.”

Each Seawolf point prompted an eruption in the arena, complete with cheers rising, pompoms flailing, and foam fingers to the sky – but the loudest cheers of the night may have been for the halftime contest participant who managed to serve one up into the tiny basketball net on the other side of the court with just one second left on the clock.

Saturday marked the second time in three seasons that UAA has snatched the record from the University of Nebraska Kearney. Prior to UAA’s first record-breaking event in 2022, Kearney held the distinction since 1996 – so it’s likely that there will be more records to come.

“If they do it again, we’ll get right back to work planning the next one,” said Seawolf volleyball coach Stacie Meisner.

The big crowd seemed to fuel the Nanooks, who posted a .291 attack percentage, their third-highest clip in 16 GNAC matches. It wasn’t just one player either. Rilee White had nine kills on 20 attempts while Rachel Pierce was 8-of-22, Karli Nelson 8-of-27, Josie Jansen 6-of-8, Kristina Heard 6-of-17 and Elena Guc 6-for-23.

They were red hot in the second with 17 kills on 31 attempts for a .484 percentage. They had to work a little harder in the third set, finishing 14-of-42 for a .262 clip.

Credit the setters, Smith (18 assists) and Cynphany Henderson (17 assists). They engineered the offense and kept everything humming and happy.

UAA’s Larssen Anderson of Anchorage led the Seawolves with 10 kills on 18 attempts for a sparking .500 attack percentage. Bethany Tuchardt added eight kills and Katie Birtcil had a half dozen.

Kadyn Osborne of Anchorage had 16 assists, Hannah Trotter chipped in 10 assists and nine digs and Madison Galloway tied UAF’s Tessa Onaga for match-high honors in digs (21).

GNAC Volleyball

GNAC	TEAM	OVERALL
14-2	Central Washington	16-6
13-3	Simon Fraser	17-6
11-5	UAF Nanooks	19-7
11-5	Western Washington	12-10
9-8	Seattle Pacific	9-16
8-8	UAA Seawolves	14-12
7-9	Western Oregon	15-10
4-12	NW Nazarene	7-17
4-12	Saint Martin’s	6-18
0-17	MSU Billings	7-20