Griz fall in four

Friday, October 27

Bozeman, Mont.

7 PM

Montana

8-14,4-6Big Sky

Montana State

14-6,7-3Big Sky

Montana

Montana St.

Photo by: Tanner Ecker/UM Photo

10/27/2023 10:19:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

Montana fell on the road to Montana State on Friday night three sets to one. The Grizzlies and Bobcats split the series on the year after Montana swept the first meeting at home. The loss drops Montana to 8-14 overall and 4-6 in Big Sky play.

It's the third straight four-set loss for Montana, who now get to return home for four of the final six matches of the regular season.

"I feel like we got outcompeted," head coach Allison Lawrence said. "MSU did a great job of being really aggressive and sticking with their system and their defensive effort outmatched ours. I think we outblocked them, but I think their floor defense shook our offense."

The Bobcats hit .272 in the match while Montana were held under .125 in three of the four sets. The Grizzlies hit .158 for the match.

Madi Chuhlantseff had a team-high 10 kills on .474 hitting, committing just one error in 19 swings. Maddie Kremer also reached double-figures with 10 kills and Carly Anderson had 34 assists.

Clark got Montana out to a fantastic start with kills on the opening two points of the match. It all came during a fast start for the Grizzlies, who had six out of seven points late in the first set to go ahead 8-4. It would extend to 10-5 after a kill from Kremer and Scherffius.

Chuhlantseff started red-hot with four kills on her first five swings, and Montana as a team were hitting over .500 through 20 points and held a 12-8 lead.

Then the Bobcat defense started to respond. They would score four straight points to tie the match at 13-all. Montana would take the lead back again, but the home team scored six of the final seven points down the stretch for the opening set win.

The Grizzly offense couldn't get much going outside of Chuhlantseff. She had five kills on six swings. Ellie Scherffius had one kill and hit .200, but they were the only Montana players with a positive hitting percentage in the first set.

Similar to the first set, Montana's offense got what it wanted in the early going. They scored four straight to take a 5-2 lead after a booming kill from Clark. The teams then traded four-point rallies. The Grizzlies did it with Sarah Ashley at the service line to open up an 11-8 lead.

Kremer turned into the hot hand later with three kills during a 6-2 Grizzly run that made it 17-12. After a seven-error first set, Montana cleaned up the offense with just two errors through that point and only three in the set overall.

Montana found another hot hand with Catie Semadeni, who scored three of Montana's points in a row by herself. It opened up a 21-17 lead and Montana would then score five out of six points for a comfortable 24-18 lead. It got uncomfortable quickly, as Montana State rallied to score six consecutive, including an ace that went to review. It ignited the large crowd inside Brick Breeden, but Montana would quiet them just as fast.

Catie is COOKING! 🍳

She has our last three points, and Montana is closing in on a first set win!#GrizVB | #BigSkyVB | #GoGriz pic.twitter.com/6Jw7JcYt5V
— Montana Griz Volleyball (@MontanaGrizVB) October 28, 2023

Scherffius found an angle for a kill and then a ball-handling error on Montana State evened the match up at one set a piece. The offense responded in the second set by hitting .325, narrowly edging out the .318 percentage from MSU.

The attack was balanced from Montana with six players recording at least four kills and no player with more than six.

The Griz held on for the set win, but the momentum of the match changed following the rally from MSU.

"We were up in the second and it felt like we kind of had control, but even their response and charge back kind of felt like it flipped the match," Lawrence said. "Even though we won that set it was almost more relief to get out of it and didn't feel like we had control."

Montana scored the first two points of the third set but the Bobcats answered to take a 5-3 lead.
The Griz would pull back to a tie on several occasions but couldn't retake the lead in the set. Things got interesting late, as MSU appeared to take a 21-16 lead but a challenged call was overturned in favor of Montana.

They used it for a small rally, cutting the lead to 20-18, but the Bobcats would stop the momentum and hold on for a 25-21 win.

It shifted the momentum fully in favor of Montana State, and they closed out the match with a 25-13 set win in the fourth. It snaps a four-match winning streak by Montana in the series.

The Grizzlies put an end to a difficult three-match road trip. Now they have the opportunity to return home for four of the final six matches of the season.

"I think we just need a dramatic emotional response. We looked one-dimensional and stressed," Lawrence said. "I think the key to this team being at its best is playing with some joy and competing point-for-point. We have to do that and stop worrying about outcome and tournament things and postseason things. Let's just compete unconditionally and enjoy that process."