Montana
North Dakota
North Dakota sweeps away Montana's momentum
10/24/2013 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Oct. 24, 2013
Box Score
North Dakota was the top team in the Big Sky Conference through the first half of the league schedule, and UND gave every indication of keeping that distinction when it opened the second half with a quick 3-0 victory over Montana Thursday night at Grand Forks, N.D., for its 11th win in 12 matches.
North Dakota (15-8, 10-1 BSC) opened fast, finished strong and dominated every area of the match in a 25-12, 25-19, 25-15 victory against a Montana (9-11, 6-5 BSC) team that had won two straight and five of its previous seven.
"They beat us in every area tonight, just like we've been doing to other teams," UM coach Jerry Wagner said. "Every position started off later than we needed it to, and you're not going to get a second chance to get it going against a team like this.
"North Dakota is too good of a team to not show up early in the match and let them know you're there for business, and we didn't do that."
When the teams met in Missoula last month, North Dakota had all of its offensive weapons on display while hitting .288 in a 3-0 win. In the rematch, UND was even better, hitting .360 while limiting Montana to .088.
UND had little regard for Griz senior outside hitter Kayla Reno, the reigning Big Sky Player of the Week. Coming off matches with 17 kills on .486 hitting in Friday's 3-0 win at Sacramento State and 19 kills on .417 hitting in Monday's 3-1 victory over Montana State, Reno was held to a season-low three kills on -.111 hitting.
Senior middle blocker Brooke Bray had a team-high eight kills on .294 hitting, and redshirt sophomore middle blocker Capri Richardson came off the bench to add four kills on .333 hitting with a team-high two blocks.
Montana fell behind 12-5 in the opening set and didn't hold its first lead in the match until a bad set by UND's Emily Thompson put the Grizzlies up 13-12 in the second.
North Dakota closed that set on an 8-2 run, then scored nine straight points midway through set three to effectively close out the match.
"We did play well at times, and there were some things we had a nice game plan for, but even when we had the game plan going, it didn't result in as many points for us as I thought we would be able to generate," Wagner said.
North Dakota had 44 kills to Montana's 30, dug 12 more balls and had six more blocks. Ronni Munkeby, the midway favorite for Big Sky MVP, had nine kills on .444 hitting and added three service aces and three blocks.
The big question going forward is, can Montana shake off Thursday's result and return to being the team that won at Sacramento State and defeated Montana State in time for Saturday's important matchup against a Northern Colorado team that has won its last four matches?
"That's exactly what we talked about in the locker room," Wagner said.
Montana and Northern Colorado will square off at 7 p.m. on Saturday in Greeley, Colo. The Bears (9-12, 5-6 BSC), who could catch the Grizzlies in the standings with a win, swept Montana State Thursday night, 25-18, 25-22, 25-17.
