North Dakota too much for Montana

Saturday, November 7

Missoula, Mont.

7:00 PM

Montana

7-19, 3-11BSC

North Dakota *

19-12, 7-7BSC

North Dakota

Montana

11/7/2015 9:57:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

North Dakota swept the Montana volleyball team at the West Auxiliary Gym in Missoula Saturday night, winning 25-14, 25-22, 28-26 to officially put an end to the Grizzlies' Big Sky Conference tournament hopes.

North Dakota (19-12, 7-7 BSC), the thorniest of all thorns in Montana's side, defeated the Grizzlies for the 11th straight time. Nine of the teams' last 10 meetings have been three-set sweeps in favor of UND.

North Dakota limited Montana (7-19, 3-11 BSC) to .087 hitting when the teams met in Grand Forks in early October. UND kept its thumb on the Grizzlies again on Saturday, holding them to .132 hitting, their lowest percentage in nearly a month.

"We kind of got served off the court tonight," said UM coach Brian Doyon. "We weren't passing well, so we weren't able to get ourselves in system and get big swings.

(11/7/2015) VB: vs. North Dakota (11.7.15)

"When we were getting swings, we were doing a decent job of scoring, but we weren't able to keep ourselves in system enough to get our offense running as well as we wanted to."

Montana, which hit .000 in the opening set and .105 in the second, never held a lead while falling behind 2-0.

The Grizzlies finally got some offense going in the third set. They put down 21 kills, eight more than North Dakota and three more than they created in the first two sets combined, but errors proved costly. Montana had 16 errors for the set between attacking, serving, receiving and blocking.

The Grizzlies had a pair of set points that could have extended the match. Up 25-24, Montana had a blocking error. A Hannah Sackett kill made it 26-25, but back-to-back kills by North Dakota made it 27-26, and the match ended on a Griz attack error.

Montana had just three fewer kills than North Dakota, but those were more than offset by its 23 attack errors. And the Grizzlies nearly matched the Big Sky leader in digs, coming up with 49 to UND's 50, but not all digs are of equal value. Those that are not passed to the setter take a team out of system.

"That was part of the problem tonight," said Doyon. "We weren't able to get the ball to the setter off our digs."

Montana also struggled to get North Dakota off the service line. The Grizzlies had a sideout percentage of 41 in the first set, 51 in sets two and three. "The golden number is 62," said Doyon, "and we were in the 40s and low 50s. That means we weren't able to run our offense."

Sackett finished with 14 kills on .270 hitting, but setter Raegan Lindsey had few other reliable options to go to. The rest of her attackers hit .074.

Sadie Ahearn had 21 digs, a season high for a three-set match. Brianna Gardner led Montana in blocks with three.

Courtney Place had 15 kills for North Dakota, which hit .283 and finished with a 7-4 blocking advantage.

Montana will conclude its season next week with a road match at Idaho State on Thursday and a home match against Montana State on Saturday.