Bears sweep Grizzlies

Friday, October 13

Missoula, Mont.

7:00 PM

Montana

6-14, 1-6BSC

Northern Colorado

10-10, 3-4BSC

Northern Colorado

Montana

10/13/2017 10:04:00 PM | Volleyball

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By: Montana Sports Information

Northern Colorado, picked second in the Big Sky Conference preseason poll, snapped a three-match losing streak with a 3-0 sweep of Montana on Friday night at the West Auxiliary Gym in Missoula, 25-18, 25-18, 25-22.

The Bears (10-10, 3-4 BSC) defeated the Grizzlies (6-14, 1-6 BSC) for the seventh consecutive time and won their fourth straight match in Missoula.

Emily O'Neil and Alex Kloehn, Northern Colorado's middle blockers, combined for 17 kills on .517 hitting, and freshman setter Daisy Schultz directed the Bears to .233 hitting.

Montana hit .270 in its last match, a 3-1 win at Weber State on Saturday, but on Friday the Grizzlies were forced to become one-dimensional.

Missy Huddleston had 14 kills on .370 hitting and Maddy Marshall added 10 kills on .318 hitting, both scoring well on the left side, but the Grizzlies hit a negative percentage in the middle and on the right side.

"Missy and Maddy did a great job hitting over .300. That's an incredible job by them, because that's in a lot of out-of-system, bad-ball situations, but if we can't get offense going anywhere else, we're not going to win," said first-year coach Allison Lawrence.

Northern Colorado entered Friday's match with just a single set win in its previous three matches, and Lawrence saw something in the Bears' recent play that she thought her team could exploit.

"I thought we'd be able to serve them out of system a little bit more," she said. "They passed better than we expected. They were coming off a weekend when their serve-receive looked a little rattled."

Ashley Watkins served up the first point of the match for Montana. Northern Colorado passed perfectly to Schultz, who had a quick set to O'Neil that went straight to the floor for a UNC point before Montana could move.

The Bears never trailed in the first two sets, hitting .294 in the opener and limiting the Grizzlies to negative hitting in the second.

"When they had all three hitters, with the pace of their offense, it was hard for us to not have to leave certain hitters alone. It was hard for us to block everything coming at us without feeling like we were really behind the play," said Lawrence.

Tied 7-7 in the third, Marshall and Huddleston put down back-to-back kills to force Northern Colorado to take its first timeout of the match, and Marshall added a service ace to make it 10-7.

"We couldn't really do much on offense the first two sets because we were passing pretty poorly. That limited our offense to one, maybe two hitters if you include the back row," said Lawrence.

"We passed better in the third set and executed our serving zones a little bit better and got them a little rattled. Once their ball-control faltered a little bit, we were able to have two blockers on every hitter, get a lot of touches, slow their offense down and score with them."

Montana built its lead to 18-13, but Northern Colorado scored six of the next seven points to quiet a raucous home crowd and even the match at 19-19.

Kortney Lockey, who matched O'Neil with a team-high nine kills, put Northern Colorado up 21-20, and the Bears pulled away from there, looking like the more comfortable team in a tense moment.

"We started passing the ball straight up in the air. It looked like we got really tentative and tight, and they played loose and like they were still the aggressor," said Lawrence.

Northern Colorado hit .297 in the third set to finish off its first 3-0 sweep in nearly a month.

Marshall added 12 digs for her third double-double in as many matches. Watkins totaled 30 assists, Lia Gaogao finished with 12 digs.

The challenge will be even greater on Saturday night when Montana hosts North Dakota at 7 p.m. The Fighting Hawks, who have defeated the Grizzlies 13 straight times, improved to 20-4 this season with a 3-0 win at Montana State on Friday.