Season Ends For Volleyball Scotties

After snagging the District title last week, the Scottie volleyball team headed to Malta for the divisional tournament. First round action pitted Glasgow against Cutbank.

In Games 1 and 2, the Scotties could not be stopped. Superb passing allowed for a varied and effective offense, directed by setter JoLynn Reyling (35 assists) and executed by leading hitters Megan Dailey (16 kills) and Abby Dalbey (8 kills). Dalbey also led with 13 digs and 3 blocks. The Scotties won that match 25-8, 25-15, 19-25, 23-25, 17-15.

The Fairfield Eagles proved to be too much for the Scotties in their next match.

“It’s pretty tough to have our 5’6 outside blockers go up against Jill Barta (6’4) and be successful doing so,” said coach Lori Dailey. “We tried to capitalize and score runs of points while she was in the back row, but I swear she was just always up front.”

Fairfield ended up winning the match 25-18, 25-23, 25-22, despite a strong effort from Glasgow.

In loser-out action, the Scotties faced a familiar opponent: the Plentywood Wildcats. Always an exciting match-up, this time Glasgow was able to play solidly and come away with a strong win over perennially tough Plentywood.

Reyling amassed an astonishing 46 assists while Dailey took over at the net, killing the ball an amazing 24 times.

“I’ll have to go back over the years, but I think both of those stats are single-match records,” said coach Dailey.

Dalbey and Megan Dailey also led the way with 13 digs apiece, Dalbey was high blocker (5) and Sadie Sukut and Amy Breigenzer each racked up 4 blocks. Add 4 aces each for Dalbey and Mariah Stein and you can see why coach Dailey was so excited.

“It’s always nice to win, but so much better when your team plays as well as we did,” she said. “Everyone contributed to the momentum, and things kept going our way. It’s hard to watch a season end and we have great admiration for how Plentywood always plays hard, today was just our day.”

GHS won the match 25-11, 26-24, 20-25, 25-15.

Then it was time for the two No. 1 teams to meet. Glasgow and Choteau hadn’t seen each other since the preseason tournament in early September, when each team won once in a two-game match.

“Choteau commands respect, from their tradition of winning and attending the state tournament every year, to the outstanding coaching staff who always know how to get the most out of any team,” Dailey said. “This year they were relatively young and we hoped that would work to our advantage, but they just had more weapons than we did.”

Dalbey, Dailey and Sage Sukut hit the ball well (8, 7 and 7 kills, respectively), Dailey cleaned up the floor with a game-high 13 digs, followed by Sadie Sukut with 7 and Dalbey with 6. Once again Mariah Stein’s serve did its damage, causing 3 aces.

“While the scores might not exactly reflect this, I never felt like we were completely outplayed, like we didn’t have a chance,” the coach said. “We were pretty jittery in the first game and it showed, but we got on track and provided the Bulldogs with some good competition.”

A very respectable Choteau team went on to win the match 16-25, 23-25, 25-23 15-25.

It’s interesting to note that Glasgow’s two losses in the tournament came at the hands of the eventual winner (Fairfield) and runner-up (Choteau) of the divisional tournament.