Griz volleyball adds four

There is a changing feeling in the air around the Montana volleyball program. The Grizzlies had the program's best year since 1999 in the 2022 season and are in the midst of another good season under seventh-year head coach Allison Lawrence.

It's all part of a grand plan for Lawrence and associate head coach Dana Hallisey. The duo have been carefully building the program up over the years, picking players that match with the personality and chemistry of the team.

In order for them to take the next step on the journey towards a Big Sky Championship, they need to plan out the future with the players that can lead them to those heights. They think they have done so with a group of four players that have all agreed to come to Montana in the fall for the 2024 season.

Sydney Pierce, Alex Stone, Delaney Russell, and Josie Blazina are all lined up to join the Grizzlies next season, giving Lawrence a very promising and exciting group of young players to add to an existing core that is accomplishing things that Missoula hasn't seen for some time.

"It feels like the next step in a really important progression where we've had the classes that were recruited under the narrative of, here's the growth and change that you are going to create while you're here," Lawrence said. "This class is now, we've turned a big corner, that change has happened thanks to the incredible people that came before you, and it's your job to use that momentum to go consistently win."

It's a group that includes two Montanans in Pierce and Blazina to go along with Stone, a Southern California player from San Juan Hills, and Russell, a Greenwood Village, Colo. native that plays for Valor Christian HS.

The quartet all have different skill sets but similar characteristics. It was important to Lawrence to get not only quality athletes, but the right humans as well.

"We went into this recruiting class wanting athletes that had a really high motor. We wanted them to be such hard workers in every area of their lives and we wanted them to be hard workers emotionally," Lawrence said. "Bringing a ton of enthusiasm and a joy for the grind, the practice gym, and the hard things that are part of this experience. I think we knocked it out of the park with this group."

Pierce is competing for a state championship with Billings West in Bozeman this weekend. The 6-4 middle blocker is the school's all-time leader in kills and will fill a large gap that will be left behind when Ellie Scherffius graduates this year.

Stone is an outside hitter for San Juan Hills that has a big-time arm. She was named the South Coast MVP and Offensive Player of the Season to go along with Athlete of the Month and Most Outstanding Player awards. She received a big honor earlier Wednesday by being named Honorable Mention All-American by the AVCA.

Russell is part of a volleyball dynasty in Colorado as her Valor Christian team has won 54 straight matches and will seek their second straight 5A state title this weekend. Russell also earned an All-America Honorable Mention Wednesday morning, and she has also been on the AVCA High School Phenom List three times in her career.

Blazina is a two-time offensive MVP for her Belgrade HS team and earned Second Team All-Conference as a junior. She's an impressive overall athlete, competing in multiple sports and winning the Western AA triple jump while taking second in the long jump.

They all have the stats and accolades to make a coach excited, but the way that they have interacted with Lawrence and engaged with the entire Montana team throughout the recruiting process has stood out.

"They are so communicative, their enthusiasm comes through consistently with how they engage with our program now, and they seem so connected to our current team in ways that feel very new and exciting," Lawrence said. "They've done the parts of this process so personally, so authentically, and so in line with the types of people that we want here."

This will be the first class recruited to Montana following the dramatic success of 2022. The entire outlook and narrative of the program experienced a fairly sudden change after the 17-win season. Lawrence said that the steps to get there took a certain type of player and recruit, and that the next step of competing for a Big Sky title.

The program is in a different place than it was four and five years ago when the current senior class came in.

But it's the connection to that class, which will celebrate senior night next Saturday to close out four incredible careers that began with a 2-14 record in the shortened spring season of 2021 and is hoping to end with the team's first tournament win since 2013, that makes this whole process so much more special.

Without players like Catie Semadeni, Sarah Ashley, Jackie Howell, and Ellie Scherffius, Montana might not have had a chance to bring in a group like they did on Wednesday.

"I think the qualities that these recruits bring, what attracted those people here, is our current team," Lawrence said. "The work that they've done have attracted the qualities that are required for the next step in our program. I think that's so cool."

Coach Allison Lawrence on…

…Alex Stone – Dana Point, Calif. – San Juan Hills HS
"I think Alex has been really exciting to recruit because initially we didn't really have a connection. You can't help but recruit out of (Southern California) because they have teams that are at every tournament and it's a big hotbed.

"She hits hard, which is a simplistic and kind of silly thing to emphasize, but I think it's essential to being terminal and she has an arm. It's been a focus of our recruiting and a strength of our roster is that we have arms. We have them on the pin and in the middle, and I think she adds so much to that."

"You can't help but be swept up in her competitiveness. She competes so joyously, but also relentlessly. She is going to be a favorite to watch amonst Griz fans. You feel pulled in to what she's doing, she brings you along with her, and it's really cool."

"I played with her club director and high school coach with Jessica Papell at Oregon State. We have kept in touch over the years and she reached out at the same time Alex did and it reinforced this personal connection. What started as a, "Yeah I'll check this athlete out on behalf of a friendship to see if there is anything there," quickly turned into every month and every recruiting cycle we were more and more excited about the pieces that Alex brings."

…Sydney Pierce – Billings, Mont. – Billings West HS

"What really excites us about Sydney is her physicality. She's long, she's really strong, sees the court really well and because she's so tall and her contact point is really high she's able to execute angles offensively and just see the court really well and be terminal."

"I think if you've watched our team over the last four years we are really middle focused. We run a lot of offense through the middle and those roles are really key for us to balance our offense the way we want to, and we see her as a crucial piece of that."

"She's from Montana. She has grown up knowing what it means to be a Griz and play in these rivalry games and wear her home state on her jersey. There is something to be said for the pride she has in representing Montana and having her family at games."

…Josie Blazina – Belgrade, Mont. – Belgrade HS
"When we met Josie we weren't necessarily looking to add another pin, but her drive to be great, her connection to this place, and she showed us so much interest and enthusiasm. She expressed a lot of desire to be in this environment and it felt really authentic in a way where we had to re-evaluate and say, "This is a person we really want to do this with.""

"She is going to make our program better and is going to deepen our culture and push us athletically. When we find someone like that, it doesn't matter what the recruiting plan was or where we were roster wise, we just have to add them."

"Her jumping ability and her explosiveness as an athlete is really exceptional. Her potential is so exciting, she's such a physical kid. And because of who she is as a teammate I think she will reach that physical potential because she brings the most out of other people and is a team-first player."

…Delaney Russell – Greenwood Village, Colo. – Valor Christian HS

"We watched her for a long time and you track her progress and think at some point, just because she's undersized, she's going to transition to more of a DS, libero role. She just, in every big match at open level contending for medals at junior nationals, she ends up hitting because she's such a go-to player in those big moments."

"Her body of work proves that she plays bigger than her frame and gets the most out of her body. She is relentless and I just think that's the exact attitude we want. She embodies the mentality that this program has to have to move from where we are at in the conference now to where we are consistently contending at the top. She won't settle for anything less."

"She's so generous with her energy and is such a good teammate. She's so positive and fun, and is just so happy when she plays. She's playing against people who are stressed out and everybody is trying to be the best and she is loving those moments."

University of Montana Athletics

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