Lady Pirates drop two at state

Polson defeats Stevensville, drops matches to Laurel and

Billings Central

BOZEMAN - Just a few point into their first match, disaster struck for junior Riley Kenney. The gritty Lady Pirate had been an inspiration for the team as she spent the past few weeks playing through a separated shoulder injury.

Her shoulder popped out again in Polson's opening match against Laurel during the state tournament last Thursday, and Polson was stunned.

"We worried about Riley," head coach Jan Toth, who has praised her injured player's toughness for much of the season, said. "We couldn't get our heads into the game."

Laurel ended up winning 3-1 with scores of 25-17, 22-25, 25-16, 25-23, and Polson faced an uphill battle in the lower bracket of the tournament. The Lady Pirates would have to win five straight matches in two days in order to capture a state championship.

"We're one of those teams that never does anything easy," Toth said.

Polson, which had an undefeated season in Northwestern A play and in the divisional tournament, bounced back in the second match with a 3-1 win over Stevensville.

It wasn't easy, though, as the Lady Pirates lost the first game 20-25 and had made some headway in the second game. That's when Toth called a time-out to talk to her team.

"Stevensville was setting the tempo of the game," Toth, who refocused her team during the time out, said. "That was the first time I raised my voice during the state tournament."

It worked, however, as the Lady Pirates won the next three games, 25-23, 25-17, 25-17.

"The girls started to step up their play," Toth said.

A large part of that had to do with the defensive play of senior libero Kenyall Rochin, who had 26 digs and Shay Duford, who posted 19 digs.

"Anything Stevensville was able to get past out blocking we were defensively able to pick up," Toth said.

That set Polson up for an afternoon showdown against Butte Central. The Rams were able to beat the Lady Pirates in three sets, 25-15, 25-20, 26-24.

"Every team was tough in that tournament," Toth said. "Whoever we played, we had to play our best volleyball and it just wasn't our weekend."

Senior Breanne Kelley contin-ued to be her brilliant self as she collected 59 kills in three matches for the tournament.

"That girl just came out and was unbelievable," Toth said. "She didn't want it to end."

Another standout for Polson was senior Kayla Duford, who had 90 assists during the tournament.

"Kayla did an excellent job mixing the ball around," Toth said.

The Butte Central loss knocked Polson out of the tournament a year after they had placed fourth.

"It was tough, it was very emo-tional," Toth said.

However, there was nothing the Lady Pirates had to be down about.

"I just thanked them for leaving everything they had out on the court," Toth said.

GAME 1 VS LAUREL

Laurel defeated the Northwestern A divisional champions 25-17, 22-25, 25-16, 25-23 in the first round of the Class A state tournament at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse on Thursday.

"We are used to the long way," Polson coach Jan Toth said.

"We will let this roll off of our backs and see what tomorrow brings," she said.

"But you can't win a game where you are always on the de-fensive and where you have only one hitter putting the ball down," Toth said.

Breanne Kelley had 19 kills for the Pirates. The next closest person was Ashley Johnson with six. On the other side of the court, the Locomotives had three people bunched together with 10, eight and five. Added to Laurel's stellar play was an erratic showing from the Pirates.

"If we added the points (the Lo-comotives) scored themselves and then added the points we scored for them ... we would be on the winning side," the coach said.

One example came in the forth game - the Pirates, trailing 21-17, put together four straight points with a kill, an ace and a block. But at 21-all, an easy tip from the Locomotives found the floor. Polson tied it again at 22-all, but then gave up a point when the Laurel setter dumped the ball. Another point slipped away when a hitter dumped the ball into the net.The Pirates fended off one match point, but down 24-23, a set sailed wide of the antenna.

Kelley made a valiant effort to keep the ball in play, but her final shot was called wide of the antenna.

"We didn't come ready. We didn't come hungry enough and Laurel outplayed us," Toth said.

"They didn't let anything hit the ground and they controlled the ball the whole time. They didn't hit the ball hard and it wasn't anything we hadn't seen before," she said.

Kills - Polson 41 (Bre-anne Kelley 19, Ashley Johnson 6), Laurel 33 (Han-nah Weishoff 10, Keilah Ah-mann 8), Assists - Polson 41 (Kayla Duford 38), Laurel 27 (Jayde Lefevre 14, Tara Russell 12), Blocks - Polson 7 (Breanne Kelley 4), Lau-rel 8 (Madi Mills 5, Amanda Taylor 5), Digs - Polson 84 (Kendyall Rochin 32, Bre-anne Kelley 16), Laurel 171 (Ashley Steinmetz 41, Sam Sissel 35, Jayde Lefevre 35), Aces - Polson 10 (Ash-ley Johnson 3, Shay Duford 3), Laurel 7 (Ashley Stein-metz 2, Amanda Taylor 2).

GAME 2 VS STEVENSVILLE

The Pirates blew a 10-point first-set lead in their first match of the day, but rallied to drop the Stevensville Yellowjackets from the tournament 20-25, 25-23, 25-17, 25-17.Kelley had 17 kills, six aces and two blocks to lead Polson.

The Pirates led Stevensville 15-5 in the first game, but the Yellowjackets crawled back in it on the serving of Michaila Funkhouser and Alexa Omlid.

Funkhouser served seven straight to get the Jackets within four, then Omlid finished the set with seven straight to take Stevensville from one point down to a 23-20 lead.The second set got off to a horrible start for Polson as it scored the first point, but fell behind 9-1.

The turnaround started when Kelley tooled a kill off the Jacket block, then jump served a pair of aces to get Polson into striking distance trailing 11-8.

Polson hung around, within five or six points, until Kelley's next turn at the service line. This time, she served seven straight, including two more aces and turned the Stevensville offense on its ear.

The Pirates rolled to claim the next two sets.

Kills - Polson 28 (Bre-anne Kelley 17, Sallie Sams 5), Stevensville 27 (Brittney Chilcott 12), Assists - Pol-son 28 (Kayla Duford 27), Stevensville 23 (Michaila Funkhouser 10), Blocks - Polson 8 (Riley Kenney 3, Kelley 2, Sams 2), Ste-vensville 5 (Chilcott 3), Digs - Polson 102 (Kendy-all Rochin 26, Shay Duford 19), Stevensville 47 (Kyla Paulsen 13), Aces - Polson 20 (S. Duford 8, Kelley 6), Stevensville 9 (Alexa Omlid 3, Maddie Jones 3).

GAME 3 VS BILLINGS CENTRAL

The Billings Central Rams swept the Polson Pirates 25-15, 25-20, 26-24 in an afternoon loser-out contest at the Class A state volleyball tournament on Friday.

"Everybody tried so hard. The try was there, but we got a little intimidated," Polson coach Jan Toth said.

"Billings Central was quick. We got intimidated, missed serves and then the passing went," she said.

"We didn't put up the block," she added.

The effort was definitely there.

Breanne Kelley had 23 kills in a three-set match. She also had 15 digs. Kayla Duford had 25 assists and served one ace and Kendyall Rochin had 26 digs and three aces.

The Pirates were right with Central in the early going.

The teams were tied at 13-all in the first set, but Central picked up its game with seven kills in the next 10 points.Polson, on the other hand, had four unforced errors. The Rams outscored the Pirates 12-2 to finish out the set.The Pirates were closer in the next two sets - they were within three points at 20-23 in the second set. But Central got set point on a kill by Maggie Hanser and the Pirates were whistled in the net on the next point.

The final set was any-body's game. Neither team led by more than three points. The Lady Pirates fought off three Central match points, but didn't have quite enough left to push through.

"But what a great bunch of kids," Toth said.

"It's been fun to coach them. This is a great group of girls. It's hard to let them go. They've made a name for Polson and they've given the underclassmen big shoes to fill," she said.

Kills - Central 50 (Ashley Heringer 14, Maggie Han-ser 14) , Polson 33 (Breanne Kelley 23), Assists - Cen-tral 45 (Katie Cummins 38), Polson 25 (Kayla Du-ford 25), Blocks - Central 2 (Kalli Sizemore 2), Polson 6 (Sallie Sams 3), Digs - Cen-tral 65 (Ashley Heringer 22), Polson 85 (Kendyall Rochin 26, Breanne Kelley 15), Aces - Central 5 (Mag-gie Hanser 2, Alyssa Melder 2), Polson 4 (Rochin 3, Du-ford 1).