Freshmen come of age in 3-0 victory
8/28/2010 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Freshman Kayla Reno had 16 kills on .350 hitting to lead the Montana volleyball team to a 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 28-26) sweep of Arkansas-Little Rock Saturday afternoon at the Mississippi State Maroon Classic in Starkville, Miss. The Grizzlies, who improved to 2-1 with the win, will face the unbeaten and host Bulldogs (3-0) Saturday night in the tournament???s final match.
The Trojans ended the tournament 0-4, dropping 3-0 decisions to Montana and Mississippi State and 3-2 outcomes to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Austin Peay.
Reno, who had three kills and three errors in 14 attacks in Friday???s two matches, got Montana???s outside hitters out of their hitting rut, finishing with 16 kills and just two errors in 40 swings. She also added seven digs.
Sophomore Paige Branstiter, who was limited to .000 hitting in two matches Friday, had nine kills and just three errors in 23 attacks to hit .261.
Montana hit .262 against the Trojans after hitting .087 in Friday???s split.
???The thing we didn???t do well (in Friday afternoon???s 3-0 loss to Austin Peay), we did very well today, and that was our passing,??? UM coach Jerry Wagner said. ???We looked like a veteran serve reception group, and because of that we were able to start running an up-tempo offense.
???We had better offensive flow because of our passing, and we were able to open up the playbook for our left-side hitters.
???This looked more like the vision we have for this team.???
Reno was just one of three freshmen in the starting lineup Saturday.
Setter Kortney James had her best match of the tournament, totaling 31 assists and 12 digs. She also had five kills and no errors in 10 attacks to finish with a .500 hitting percentage.
Outside hitter Brooke Bray also started and put up solid numbers across the board: five kills, six assists, one service ace, nine digs and four blocks.
???I???m really excited for those guys, because they all had great training camps,??? Wagner said. ???All three played really well today.
???Kortney is almost veteran at this point, our passing allowed Kayla to get into the flow and really establish herself, and Brooke was all over the place. She had a lot to do with our passing numbers.???
Montana also got its usual production out of its two middle blockers, senior Jaimie Thibeault and junior Brittany Quick.
Thibeault had eight kills on .278 hitting, a pair of blocks and the key kill in the third set???s 28-26 victory.
Quick led both teams with six blocks, helping the Grizzlies to an 8.0 to 5.0 team blocks advantage.
Senior libero Brittney Brown had 15 digs, while senior Stephanie Turner added 13.
The first set was tied at 10 when a Bray kill sparked a run of nine straight points for Montana.
Turner, who served the next eight points after Bray???s kill, had a pair of service aces in the run, and Quick added two kills and two blocks.
In the tight second set, after the Grizzlies battled back from a 15-10 deficit with seven straight points, neither team held more than a two-point lead the rest of the set.
Arkansas-Little Rock senior Paige Gantar, who would finish with a match-high 17 kills, evened the score for the final time at 23 with a kill, but Reno closed out the match with back-to-back kills.
Montana appeared to be rolling to a decisive three-set victory when the Grizzlies went up 18-10 in the third set, but the Trojans slowly battled back.
Down 24-19, UALR fought off five straight match points, tying it at 24 with a kill from Kristi Block.
Another Block kill made it 26-25 and forced Wagner to use his second timeout of the Trojans??? late-set surge.
Thibeault put down a kill out of the timeout to even the score at 26, and Montana went up 27-26 when Branstiter and Quick teamed up for a block of Little Rock???s Eva Xie.
Xie had an attack error for the match???s final point.
Montana will have the opportunity to knock Mississippi State from the ranks of the unbeaten Saturday night.
???We???re going to be facing a team playing for a tournament championship on its home court, but I think we???re going to be up for the challenge,??? Wagner said.
???We???ll have (junior) Amy (Roberts???) services, so if we handle the ball and come back from this match fresh enough, I think we can hang with this team.???
