North Dakota wins in four over Montana

Friday, October 28

Missoula, Mont.

7:00 PM

Montana

4-17, 1-10BSC

North Dakota

18-9, 9-2BSC

North Dakota

Montana

10/29/2016 12:11:00 AM | Volleyball

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By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana volleyball team snapped a 19-set winless streak against North Dakota on Friday night at the West Auxiliary Gym, but the Fighting Hawks still came away with a 3-1 victory to move into a first-place tie with Northern Arizona atop the Big Sky Conference standings.

North Dakota (18-9, 9-2 BSC) won 25-18, 13-25, 25-14, 25-20 to hand Montana (4-17, 1-10 BSC) its ninth straight loss.

The Grizzlies had some of their best kill totals of the season, including a 17-kill, .308-hitting performance in a set-two rout, but North Dakota made the plays over the final two sets to remain in contention to host next month's Big Sky tournament.

"They are a great team. We took some licks at them, and they made big plays, but our girls were in there battling and making big-time plays themselves," said coach Brian Doyon. "That's some of the best volleyball we've played all season."

(10/29/2016) VB: vs. North Dakota (10.28.16)

Freshman Missy Huddleston had 15 kills and 18 digs, both season highs, senior libero Sadie Ahearn dug 19 balls, and senior Raegan Lindsey totaled 20 assists to move into 10th place on the Montana career list.

North Dakota rolled into the West Auxiliary Gym having won its last 12 against Montana, 10 coming in 3-0 sweeps, and it looked like that would continue early on. The Fighting Hawks hit .341 in the opening set and scored seven of the final eight points to take a 1-0 lead.

But in the second set, the teams flipped roles. Behind the serving of Mykaela Hammer and Ashley Watkins, the Grizzlies raced out to an improbable 14-1 lead and cruised to a 25-13 win.

North Dakota was off-balance throughout and totaled just four kills after putting down 16 in the opening set. On the other side of the net, Montana had 17 kills, the most for either team in any set on Friday.

Sophomore Cassie Laramee had seven of her 12 kills in the second set. Huddleston took six swings and turned five of them into kills.

"We got quite a few points off our serve, but offensively we were getting kills as well," said Doyon. "As the match wore on, we got a whole bunch of kills from a lot of different players when we needed them."

The victory was the first for Montana over North Dakota since the opening set of the teams' first of three meetings in 2014. UND won the teams' most recent five matches in straight sets.

Any momentum Montana had following set two was lost in set three. It was tight early, but North Dakota, which hit a match-best .429, held the Grizzlies to .000 hitting to pull away.

"We didn't know what they were going to do going into set three, and they ended up completely flipping their lineup," said Doyon. "We didn't have a great matchup, so that one got away from us a little bit.

"In set four, we flipped our lineup to get the matchup we had in sets one and two, and it worked out well."

Montana had more kills than North Dakota in the final set, but the Grizzlies also hit themselves into trouble. The Fighting Hawks had seven of their 16 blocks in set four.

With the set tied 18-18, Tamara Merseli put down a kill for UND to make it 19-18. On the next point, North Dakota came up with a block, and the Fighting Hawks would go on to the victory.

"It comes down to a few errors here and there, and that's something that's easily cleaned up," said Doyon. "For us to come out and go lick for lick with one of the top teams in our conference, I was pretty impressed with our team."

Merseli had 13 kills on .343 hitting for North Dakota. Faith Dooley hit .312 and had a match-high nine blocks.

Montana will host Northern Colorado on Saturday at 7 p.m. The Bears improved to 8-3 in league, 14-9 overall, with a 3-1 win at Montana State on Friday.