Lady Vikings take two

DRUMMOND - Charlo turned in a tough performance against Drummond, defeating them 3-1 in a non-conference match last Tuesday on the road. It was such an impressive display that Lady Vikings head coach Sheryl Kain thought that her players looked much better that night than their 3-0 road sweep of Seeley-Swan on Thursday.

"The whole match I thought both teams played very well," Kain said of Charlo and Drummond.

Kain said that she doesn't like her teams to play easy games where the score gets out of hand and play gets sloppy.

Sophomore Rachel Hoyt was a key player in the 25-21, 25-27, 25,23, 25,23 victory.

She had 16 kills of the team's 45 and seven blocks.

"She's doing really well," Kain said. "She's very active. Sometimes almost too active."

Kain hopes that Hoyt will continue improving because she could be a force when the post-season tournaments roll around.

Kain felt focus was perhaps a little lacking in the Lady Viking's game against Seeley-Swan. Despite winning 26-24, 25-10, 25-21, she felt the team was about a step short.

She said that sometimes the team looked like they were caught off-guard by balls and while their talent allowed them to make some tremendous plays, they still should have been better prepared. She said the team would relax after a good stretch of play.

"It wasn't like the entire match was ugly, it was just very sporadic when they would work very well," Kain said.

After a closely contested 26-24 match where Kain thought the team looked slow, the Lady Vikings woke up and won the second match by a large margin, 25-10.

"We weren't quite a half step slow but we weren't at the top of our game," she said.

However, in the third match the first serve by Charlo went into the net and Kain felt the team regressed to their first game form.

Despite all this, Hoyt again was a catalyst for the team with 11 kills and junior Kinley Pope provided the defensive backup with 15 digs.

Charlo will play Noxon at 5:30 p.m. tonight on the road. The Lady Vikings will then play in the Philipsburg Tournament on Saturday.