Second tournament brings tougher field

The Montana volleyball team, which went 2-1 at its season-opening tournament at North Texas last weekend, will travel to Orem, Utah, this week for Utah Valley's three-day Wolverine Invitational.

Montana will play Long Beach State at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Utah Valley at 5 p.m. on Friday and No. 9 Kansas at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Coverage: Montana's matches on Thursday and Saturday can be watched for a fee at FloVolleyball.tv. Friday's match against Utah Valley will have free coverage through WACSports.com. All three matches can be tracked through live stats. Links to all services can be found at gogriz.com.

For starters: Under first-year coach Allison Lawrence, Montana had a feel-good start to the season, opening with wins over UTEP and Tulsa last weekend at Denton, Texas, before falling to North Texas.

Those two victories matched Montana's longest winning streak since October 2014 (no kidding) and put the Grizzlies within three of matching last season's win total of five.

Long Beach State went 1-2 at home last weekend, falling to then No. 2 (and current No. 1) Stanford in straight sets, beating Wright State 3-0 and losing to Iowa in four.

Utah Valley is 0-3 after opening the season at San Jose State and San Francisco's co-hosted tournament. The Wolverines lost in four sets to Pepperdine, Fresno State and Nevada. Utah Valley plays at Southern Utah on Tuesday night.

Kansas, which opened the season at No. 8 after going 27-3 a year ago, is 3-0 after picking up three wins last weekend at North Carolina State's tournament. The Jayhawks defeated the host Wolfpack and Missouri State, both in four sets, then defeated NC State again, this time in five sets.

Rank opponent ahead: When Montana faces No. 9 Kansas on Saturday morning, it will mark the first time since the Grizzlies played at No. 22 UC Irvine in 2009 that they've played a ranked opponent. Montana fell in that match 3-1.

The last time Montana faced a top-10 opponent was No. 3 Washington in 2004. The Grizzlies lost in straight sets to the Huskies in a match played in Boise.

Pair earns all-tournament honors: A pair of Grizzlies earned all-tournament honors last weekend at North Texas: Junior Mykaela Hammer, who averaged 3.25 kills on .281 hitting and 1.25 blocks, and sophomore setter Ashley Watkins, who averaged 9.17 assists and led the team to .210 hitting.

Ten topics of conversation to impress your friends around the water cooler at the office this week, because they all are likely to have a mild case of Griz volleyball fever.

1. Evaluating Montana's success last weekend, at a tournament with some like teams, came easily: Did Montana win or lose? This weekend that will be trickier, since the field is stronger than the one the Grizzlies faced last week at North Texas.

"We'll evaluate this week's matches similarly to last weekend, mainly how we respond to in-game pressure," said Lawrence. "We saw a little more pressure against North Texas than we did against UTEP and Tulsa, and we're going to see that level of pressure and physicality again this weekend."

Montana could play better this weekend than last weekend but not have the wins to show for it, such is the strength of the field. Kansas is one of the best teams in the nation, Long Beach State ended last season with a top-70 RPI, and Montana will get Utah Valley on the Wolverines' home floor.

"What I want to see is, have we gotten better against a team like North Texas?" said Lawrence. "Win or lose, have we gotten better? Are we paying attention to the details we were missing against North Texas?

"There are a few things we've honed in on. If we clean those up, we'll be in better position to beat a team like North Texas or Long Beach or Kansas. To me, that would be a marker that we've used our time wisely between tournaments."

2. When Montana faces Kansas on Saturday morning, the Jayhawks will provide the type of opponent that will be new for every player on the Grizzlies' roster.

Kansas, picked second in the Big 12 preseason poll behind Texas, is hitting .268 through three matches and averaging 3.0 blocks per set. Senior Kelsie Payne, a 6-foot-3 right-side hitter, is averaging 4.54 kills on .343 hitting.

The Jayhawks lost just two regular-season matches last year, falling on the road at No. 14 Purdue and No. 5 Texas. Kansas saw its 15-match winning streak come to an end with a five-set loss at home to No. 21 Creighton in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Lawrence played collegiately at Oregon State, meaning she faced teams of Kansas's caliber every season in the then Pac-10, so she knows what her team will be up against.

"There are not a lot of teams like Kansas," said Lawrence. "The challenge will be their physicality and their size and what they're able to do athletically. The mentality I want from our players is to do their job well, support their teammates and have a relentless pursuit on every point.

"These types of matches are fun, because it's fun to play the best."

3. Montana hit just .117 last season, one of the lowest marks in the nation, so it was refreshing to see the Grizzlies hit .256 in their four-set win over UTEP to open the season. Montana hit .220 in its five-set win over Tulsa and ended the weekend at .210. It's early, but it's a big improvement over 2016.

The team's middle blockers hit better than .300 and right-side hitter Mykaela Hammer hit .281.

"Our pin hitters, Mykaela, Cassie and Missy in particular, have worked unbelievably hard since the last ball fell in November to not only be go-to hitters for us but also have versatility in their attacking," said Lawrence.

"Once you can widen your offense in that way and not be so predictable, then you're going to score more points. It's as simple as that. Then you can either isolate a good hitter you have or maybe overload a weak blocker and put a ton of pressure on the other side."

4. Montana had just 89 service aces last season, less than one per set. The Grizzlies put down 22 in three matches last weekend in 12 sets (1.83/s).

Montana had 13 alone in its win over UTEP, with only a dozen service errors, a ratio any coach would take. Four players came out of North Texas's tournament with four or more aces to their credit.

"We've tried to make it part of our mentality when we're in practice that serving is a huge part of our identity as a team," said Lawrence. "They're putting themselves on the service line in practice in a game-like mentality, and they are responding to it.

"We've also changed a little bit tactically, but more than anything we're treating serving like it's a priority. And we have some good servers who have honed in on the way of serving their best in pressure situations."

5. Junior right-side hitter Mykaela Hammer may not have won Big Sky Conference Player of the Week honors for her big tournament at North Texas, but she had that kind of value for Montana.

She had 14 kills on .346 hitting against UTEP, then was even better against Tulsa, finishing with a career-high 19 kills on .395 hitting. She was limited to six kills against North Texas but led both teams with seven blocks.

"She was outstanding," said Lawrence. "She played like a senior. She had a control over her game and her decision-making that allowed our team to follow her and emulate her at the same time. Without her being as good as she was, especially in bad-ball situations, we would have struggled.

"When you're able to run your offense through the right side, it's different enough that it can throw teams off. If we can do that with Mykaela, I think we're going to be successful."

6. Lawrence went into last weekend's tournament thinking both junior Brittany Gay, a transfer from North Idaho College, and sophomore Ashley Watkins would see plenty of action at setter. Instead it was Watkins getting the lion's share of the playing time.

"Ashley has become physical. She is now jump-setting, which makes her contact point higher, and that makes her offensive when she's the front-row setter and makes her harder to read," said Lawrence.

"With her being as dynamic as she was from the start, it made it really difficult for us to take her off the court."

Watkins had 41 assists against UTEP, 51 more against Tulsa, and was one of the team's threats from the service line.

"We also didn't want to get into a situation where we were quickly subbing people in and out. We wanted the players on the floor to believe there was some faith in them from the sideline and not have them looking over their shoulder all the time," said Lawrence.

"I just wanted them to play freely and focus on themselves. The players we had on the floor earned the opportunity to work through those things."

7. One of Montana's weaknesses last season was its play in the middle, and that was an area of concern going into last weekend as well.

Freshman Baily Permann quickly put some of those concerns to rest. She had 12 kills on .400 hitting against UTEP, with a pair of blocks in her collegiate debut. Against Tulsa she had seven blocks, and against North Texas she hit .429 and added five more blocks.

Three matches into her career she is hitting .341 and ranks second on the team, behind Hammer's 15, with 14 blocks.

"Baily's been learning so much information at such a fast rate that there are times at practice when she's really outside of her comfort zone and struggling," said Lawrence. "And then there are times when she puts it all together.

"The way she played last weekend is way more of a complete player than we've seen in practice. Everything came out, and it was really cool to see."

8. With the loss of Sadie Ahearn to graduation, Montana's libero position and the player who's the foundation of the team's serve-receive was up for grabs. Redshirt freshman Shannon Casale, as expected, has taken hold of the role.

Casale not only had 28 digs in Montana's two wins last weekend, she had a perfect serve-receive percentage in 58 chances. She would finish the weekend at .985.

"She did really well," said Lawrence. "What Shannon does really well is make the people around her play better, and that's part of a libero's job description. She does that by moving early and communicating well. She made our serve-receive unit work really well."

Casale was also part of the team's strong serving performance. She had four service aces and only three errors on a team-high 52 attempts, good for a .942 serving percentage.

"She took it upon herself to nail zones and be aggressive," added Lawrence. "She was able to put our opponents in a lot of trouble and ran a lot of points on her serve."

9. When Lawrence talked last week about the North Texas tournament, she said her team's opening-weekend performance would give the coaching staff a baseline, a let's-see-where-we-are starting point.

And then they would evaluate and address their weaknesses this week in practice. So what did they find out?

"They are small things, and they have to do with our ball control," Lawrence said. "In volleyball there are a lot of chaotic moments, and our first touch on those balls has not been what it needs to be. Our ball control in out-of-system situations can be a lot better.

"If we can control the points that go a little bit longer or are a little bit chaotic and come out on top of those, I think we're going to be tough to beat."

10. Traditionally these early-season tournaments have been three or four matches over two days, not the three-in-three-days that Utah Valley scheduled. But in conversations Lawrence has had with other coaches, that might be more of the norm in the future.

Compare it to last weekend, when Montana played a five-set match against Tulsa, then had only a short break before having to retake the floor to face a more rested North Texas.

Or next weekend, when the Grizzlies play Southeast Missouri State and Nebraska-Omaha one day, San Jose State and Drake the next. No sport other than softball, which isn't nearly as taxing as a five-setter is in volleyball, plays such a schedule.

"I really like this setup," said Lawrence. "The ability to prep for one team at a time, then rest and prepare for another match the next day is the key to playing your best in the preseason.

"We're all trying to raise our RPI and get some wins, so the quality of your matches needs to be really high and the quality of your rest and prep needs to be really high. I think it will bring out the best in teams."

History: Montana is 1-4 all-time against Long Beach State and hasn't faced the 49ers since 1994 in the NCAA tournament. The Grizzlies' lone victory over Long Beach came in 1983 at BYU's tournament.

Montana is 1-1 against Kansas, with a win over the Jayhawks in 1994 at Southwest Missouri State's tournament. Kansas swept Montana in Lawrence in 2001, four days before 9/11.

Montana is also 1-1 against Utah Valley, winning in 1982 at BYU and falling in 2004 in straight sets in Missoula.

Upcoming: Montana will travel to Des Moines, Iowa, next week for Drake's tournament. The Grizzlies will face Southeast Missouri State and Nebraska-Omaha on Friday, San Jose State and Drake on Saturday.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Sadie Ahearn

Shannon Casale

Brittany Gay

Mykaela Hammer

Baily Permann

Ashley Watkins

University of Montana Athletics