Maidens prepare for, host divisionals

Zach Urness / Leader Staff

Time to get down to business.

The Maidens capped the regular season by going 1-2 last weekend and will host the Northwestern A divisional tournament beginning today (Thursday, Nov. 1) at the Ronan Event Center. Ronan will take a 5-10 overall record into the tournament and open play Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. against Columbia Falls, a team they've gone 1-1 against this season.

"We have got to find some rhythm and have people step up to make plays in order for us to have success early in the tournament," said head coach Stacey Ropp. "The nice thing about divisionals in volleyball is that it doesn't matter what your record is. Anyone can come in and have a chance to play their best volleyball of the season and you can surprise people. Hopefully that is what we will be able to do."

To wrap up their final week of the regular season, Ronan beat Stevesville 3-1 last Tuesday but lost to first place Libby on Friday, 3-0, and Bigfork, 3-0, on Saturday.

"We are very capable of playing excellent volleyball but it is a matter of things coming together as a unit on the court," said Ropp. "It should be a fun tournament."

Ronan 3, Stevesville 1

The Maidens dropped the first game 25-19 at Stevensville but rallied to win a very close second game 25-23.

"We just had a hard time getting up for the game," noted Ropp. "We came out flat and dropped the first game and it looked like it could be a long night."

Ronan hit their stride in the third and fourth games, winning easily 25-17, 25-17 to take home the win.

"We eliminated some mistakes in the second game and barely pulled that one out and things began to improve somewhat in the next two where we didn't struggle nearly as bad," said Ropp. "The girls are capable of much better play than what we showed down there, but all in all it is nice to come away with a win."

Ishan Wylie and Kaylee Larson combined for 25 kills and three assists. Alison Crenshaw added 10 kills and one assist and Amanda Bartel added two aces and one kill.

Libby 3, Ronan 0

Ronan fell to the first place Libby Loggers on Friday night, 25-12, 25-9, 25-8.

"We just didn't show up ready to play and they did," said Ropp. "We didn't look comfortable on the court and we had no confidence that we could play with Libby. They just plain out played us and they are the number one team in the conference for a reason. They don't make many mistakes."

Kaylee Larson had two kills and Ishan Wylie and Kallia Orr had one each. Ashlee Cheff four assists as setter.

Bigfork 3, Ronan 0

Ronan lost their second home game of the week on Saturday to the Vals, losing a very close first game 25-24, and losing the next two games 25-19 and 25-16.

"We had a hard time trying to get anything going offensively," said Ropp. "We struggled serving the ball making 11 service errors in only three games. That was one of our poorest matches serving the ball. We were unable to give ourselves the chance to play with missing that many serves. It was a very frustrating night to say the least. We have just been selling ourselves short toward the end of the season and having a hard time getting up for big games."

Kaylee Larson had four kills and one ace and Ali Crenshaw had two kills and two aces. Orr had two aces and one kill and Ashlee Cheff had 11 assists.