Montana hosts pair of matches as regular season winds down

The Montana volleyball team will host a pair of Big Sky Conference matches this weekend at the West Auxiliary Gym, as the league schedule enters the final quarter of the season. Montana will face Northern Colorado on Friday and North Dakota on Saturday. Both matches start at 7 p.m.

The Grizzlies will play at Idaho State next Thursday, then conclude the regular season with a home match against Montana State on Saturday, Nov. 14.

Where they stand: Montana (7-17, 3-9 BSC) is in fifth place in the Big Sky Conference North Division standings and tied for ninth the important overall standings. ... Northern Colorado (10-15, 6-6 BSC) is in third place in the North Division, tied for sixth overall. ... North Dakota (17-12, 5-7 BSC) is in fourth place in the North Division, alone in eighth overall.

What's at stake: Five teams -- Northern Arizona, Idaho State, Eastern Washington, Sacramento State and Idaho -- have clinched spots to the eight-team Big Sky tournament, which will be held in two weeks, quite likely at Flagstaff, Ariz.

Northern Colorado, Southern Utah and North Dakota would be the next three teams in, but all have work to do before punching their tickets. Montana gets two of those three teams at home this week, which keeps the Grizzlies' end-of-season fortunes still somewhat in their own hands, for now.

But even a 4-0 finish to the season wouldn't guarantee Montana a tournament spot. First things first: the Grizzlies need to take care of business this week.

Trending (Montana): 6.5 on a scale of 10. The Grizzlies have won three of their last five. They won at Portland State two weeks ago for the first time since 2000 and last Thursday won at Eastern Washington for just the second time since 1995.

Trending (Northern Colorado): 7 on a scale of 10. The Bears also have won three of their last five. One of those two losses was a five-set loss (15-13 in the fifth set) at Northern Arizona, the only time the Lumberjacks have been pushed to five sets on their current 10-match winning streak.

Trending (North Dakota): 2 on a scale of 10. UND is 1-6 over its last seven league matches. The team's lone win, however, was a good one, 3-2 at Southern Utah.

The last time: When Montana traveled to North Dakota and Northern Colorado in late September, the Grizzlies returned with a 3-0 loss to UND and 3-1 setback to the Bears. That was part of a 0-7 start to its league schedule for Montana, which is 3-2 since.

"System-wise I think we're playing a little bit better than the first time we saw these teams," said coach Brian Doyon. "The team is adjusting to the style and tempo we play, so I think we're significantly better.

"The teams that we've been competing against -- Eastern Washington and Idaho -- shows we've been playing at a higher level. We've been able to stay with some of these teams and get some wins."

UND 3, UM 0: North Dakota, aided by 11 blocks, forced Montana into 26 attack errors in three sets, and that was the difference in UND's 25-23, 25-18, 25-20 win. Faith Dooley had 10 kills on .529 hitting and six blocks to lead North Dakota. Hannah Sackett had 13 kills for Montana but also nine attack errors.

"The biggest problem we had in that match was the errors we made," said Doyon. "We had some serving and passing troubles as well, but I'm hopeful we've grown out of that.

"We're passing quite a bit better than we were, and offensively we're hitting at a higher percentage than we were at the beginning of conference."

UNC 3, UM 1: The difference in the 25-19, 25-23, 25-27, 25-21 decision in favor of the Bears was end-game play. Northern Colorado was just a little better late in sets. The Grizzlies led 21-20 in set two and were in a 20-20 deadlock in set four, and dropped both.

"A couple of hitting errors, a couple of passing errors at the end of those sets cost us," said Doyon. "I'm hoping at home we'll settle in a little bit and play more error-free, or at least a little lower-error and get some big kills when we need them."

Montana hosts pair of matches as regular season winds down

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Hannah Sackett

University of Montana Athletics