Lady Pirates make championship game

Polson gets No. 1 seed in divisional crossover tourney

ANACONDA - Polson and the rest of the Northwestern A saw plenty of tough competition against the Southern division last weekend in Anaconda. The Lady Pirates, didn't back down and finished in a threeway tie for the No. 1 seed after going 6-6 in two days of action.

"We kept our games close and when we had the three way tie," Polson head coach Jan Toth said. "Our point differential was what got us the No. 1 seed. We were the only one in the positive."

Toth said that Hamilton, Stevensville and Butte Central all look very strong.

"We're as tough as any of these teams," she added. "We can only go up and get better from here."

After winning their final two games of pool play on Saturday, they matched up against Hamilton, which had gone 11-1 in the tournament. The Lady Broncs downed Polson 25-12, 11-25, 15-3 for the tournament championship. Toth said that this tournament was a learning experience since it was only the second time that the girls had used the new rotation.

There were lots of positives, and senior Riley Kenney was one of them.

"She was able to really dominate in most of our games," Toth said. "She was key in a lot of our passes."

Toth also said that the Banner sisters were impressive and the team improved their defense as a whole.

"That's what we worked on after the Whitefish game," Toth said. "I saw a lot of bright spots."

She credited assistant coach Adienna DeCock, who came over from volleyball power Huntley Project to help the Lady Pirates.

"I felt that it was a huge improvement to what we had against Whitefish," Toth said.

She added that Shay Duford did a great job setting up hitters at setter, and subs Katie Sprague and Chelsea Chowning did a great job coming in to sub.

With just one match and a tournament in the first two weeks of the regular season, the Lady Pirates should see more action coming at them.

"Now we can start easing into our season," Toth said.