Unalaska, AK – The Bethel Warriors are the 2007 Region 1 Girls' Volleyball Champions after beating the Dillingham Wolverines three games to one Saturday evening in Unalaska.

Warriors captain Ashley Fairbanks said it's a moment that she and the other seniors on the team have been waiting for since junior high.

"We've been planning this since seventh grade," she said. "We've always said, 'When we're seniors, we'll have an awesome team.' And we did."

The Warriors lost to the Wolverines 26-24 in the first game of the match, but came back to win the following three 25-16, 25-9 and 25-7.

The victory came close to not happening, however. Hurricane-force winds and low visibility kept the team's flight from landing in Unalaska until Friday morning.

"We were supposed to get here Wednesday, but we spent Wednesday night in Anchorage," said Natalie Hanson, Fairbanks's co-captain. "Then we were supposed to get here Thursday, but spent Thursday night in Anchorage." The team got in at about 11:30 a.m. on Friday, two hours before the Warriors would have had to forfeit their first game. "But we made it," Hanson said.

The Warriors handed the Unalaska Raiders the first of their two losses in the tournament, a game that Unalaska freshman Meta Mendenhall said was one of the Raiders' hardest but proudest moments in the championship.

"What was really awesome is that we got a lot more points than a lot of the other teams got against Bethel, even [Dillingham in] the championship," she said. "So we were pretty excited. They were definitely our biggest competitor."

Although this week's bad weather obviously was less of a problem for the home team than for the visitors, all the flight cancellations did keep the Raiders from getting the new shoes they had ordered for the championship. Mendenhall was putting hers on just minutes after the Raiders' final game against the Barrow Whalers.

"It's pretty whack," she said. "They just came in."