Vals knock Pirates to No. 3

Jenna Cederberg

BIGFORK - The Pirates lost their first conference match in a month last Thursday, with a 3-0 slap from the Valkries in Bigfork. A win would have meant the No. 2 seed in the Northwestern-A. Instead, the Pirates will go into divisionals as the No. 3 seed, facing No. 6 Ronan at 7 p.m. tonight in Linderman gym.

"Hats off to Bigfork," head coach Jan Toth said. "They came at us hard and never let up. We had a difficult time passing a low ball to Kayla due to the low ceilings and the beams that interfere."

In the match against the Valkries, Polson's hard hitters didn't slow down. The team recorded 34 kills on the night, with junior Breanne Kelley setting the team high with 14, but Bigfork kept pace, getting 31 of its own. In a game where the teams went back and forth in the stat column - Bigfork matched Polson's four blocks, teams had almost equal assists (Polson 29, Bigfork, 27) and digs (Polson 71, Bigfork 77) - the Valkries had the edge.

"Our offense hit hard at them, and they would come up with huge digs. They had an incredible game, starting from their serves to their serve receive. We missed seven serves in the three games, making it hard to get any momentum going," Toth said.

Bigfork didn't falter and won the match, 25-22, 25-19 and 25-16, and dominated the ace column, 9-3.

Sophomore Sallie Sams had two blocks, while junior Nicole Davey had a team-leading 17 digs. Sophomore Kayla Duford had all of the team's 29 assists. Duford, Kelley and Davey each had an ace.

While it wasn't the most ideal outcome, Polson raised the stakes for itself this season, making significant strides since winning just one conference match last year. The team's recipe for success, according to head coach Jan Toth and several players, has gotten an upgrade with the addition of several ingredients:

Confidene, confidence, confidence. Serving, serving, serving. Add a little aggression and a side of team chemistry, and you've got a 6-4 team realistically contending for a spot at the All-Class state volleyball tournament in Bozeman on Nov. 20-22.

"It's a whole new season, starting this week. No matter what place we are in, we have to play and beat the best teams to advance into state. I think we are in a good position. My team doesn't like to sit, so having to play Thursday night in our home gym with our stellar crowd, is sweet," Toth said.

That's one thing you'll also hear from the players: the excitement they feel at finally making purple and gold a presence in the Northwestern-A conference.

"Polson volleyball has never done well at divisionals, period. So I think to do good at divisionals would be amazing," hitter Davey said.

The divisional tournament kicks off today in Polson, with the first match at 5 p.m, between Columbia Falls and Whitefish, at the Linderman Elementary School gym. Only the two top teams will move from divisionals to the state tournament.

"It's divisionals and we want to do really good. I think we're ready, if we bring it, I think we'll do good," Davey said. "Coming to the end is fun, because you see how it's going to end. I mean, it's a little nerve wracking to see how it's going to go, but it's exciting, because that's what we worked for."

The Pirates have no seniors on the team, but lead the conference in three stat categories. The team averages 2.2 blocks per game and has had 92 blocks in 42 games. The Pirates also lead the conference in the key kills category, with the highest hitting percentage of 27.74, or 12.7 kills per game. Thanks to setter Duford, the team also leads the conference in assists per game, with a game average of 10.5.

Polson is third in digs per game with 21.7 per game.

Toth has seen the team's serving improve vastly. The team's three loses came early in the season when it was missing 16-18 serves a match. Now it's consistently below 10.

"At the beginning of the season, you could tell we were going to have a better season. There were just certain key things we needed to work on, like serving was one thing we needed to work on at the beginning of the year. But we're definitely more confident with our serves so that helped out a lot," junior libero Staci Benson said. "A lot of our girls didn't want to serve hard, they just wanted to get it in."

For a team with such youth, it has aged gracefully.

"To other teams, I think it's weird; this is our second year going without seniors and we've all bonded just fine. All of our juniors are good leaders too. We have a lot of leaders on the team," Benson said.

Junior Loni Havlovick, who has been out with a right foot injury, is expected to return for tonight's game. Toth said the hitter has been working "valiantly to get back to the court," and will be much-needed as the team goes into the playoffs.

Polson will also have a friendly place to kick off the post season.

"That's definitely a plus, it will help us out a lot. We play ten times better with our fans and home court advantage is definitely a good thing," Benson said.