Volleyball: Polson sweeps Columbia Falls

(From the Inter Lake)

COLUMBIA FALLS - When push came to shove, the Polson Pirates simply found a way to get it done on the volleyball court on Thursday night.

The Columbia Falls Wildkats fought off five match points. But in the end, it was Polson picking up a three-set Northwestern A victory 25-21, 25-20, 28-26.

"Honestly, it comes back to fundamentals," said Pirate coach Jan Toth.

"Our girls know how to win. They're winners, honestly. They know how to push through the hard times," she said. "It was a good win for us," Toth said.

"I tried different offenses, a lot of different kids off the bench, just to try something new and get some kids some self confidence - and I think it worked," she said.

"We gave a lot of points up, but you are going to do that when you are trying new things," she added.

"I thought Columbia Falls played us tough. They're tall. They have a big block and they did a great job against us," she added.

But this one came down to offense - and mistakes. Polson had 40 kills and 37 assists. The Wildkats had 16 kills and 12 assists. Both teams had some rough moments - the Wildkats hung right with Polson in each game. The first was tight all the way through, the second Polson led wire-to-wire and the third was nothing less than thrilling. Polson appeared to have that one well in hand early on - it led 19-14 and seemed to be ready to cruise when Columbia Falls shifted gears.

At 24-19, the Wildkats fought back with two kills from Taylor Peterson and one by Haley Belgarde. Two Pirate mistakes tied the set at 24-all. Columbia Falls took the lead on the next play when Belgarde sent a shot down the line. The teams traded the next four points. But the last two belonged to Riley Kenney and the Pirates. Kenney got a kill, then blocked Columbia Falls' final effort.

"We were plagued by missed serves. We missed seven in the final game. When you look at that, you are serving a quarter of the points for the other team. You aren't going to win games if you do that," Toth said. "We're infamous for doing that. I made them play through it. I wasn't going to switch it out and I wasn't going to let them have an easy way out, so I was proud of them (for pulling through)."

Columbia Falls coach Addy Connelly also saw plenty of positives.

"They came back. They fought hard. We worked through a lot of adversity today. It's great to see. We're losing ... but they are making such great progress," she said.

"This week in practice, we worked on coverage. We worked on blocking - and we had so many more touches on hits that our diggers were able to get up. We had things we were hitting the ground for and scrapping up," she said.

"Although it was a loss, it was a big gain ... in our self confidence and in our play. We just continue to go up, up, up," she added.

"Wins are nice, but when we make the progress we did tonight, as a coach I can't complain. The girls know what they are going to work on tomorrow when they come in to practice."

"They really stuck with it. There have been times in the past where we got down 2-3-4 points - and that was it, the gap just keeps going.

"But this crew that I have are just fantastic, they keep fighting. I'm really proud of the progress they are making.

"They are getting mentally tougher every single time they step on the court."

Individually, Polson was led by Ashley Johnson with 12 kills and three aces. Shalaina Duford had 35 assists and 12 digs.

For Columbia Falls, Peterson had five kills, two aces and 10 digs and Shaun Rowe had 13 digs and two aces.

Polson defeats Columbia Falls - 25-21, 25-20, 28-26
Kills - Polson 40 (Ashley Johnson 12, Heidi Rausch 8), Columbia Falls 16 (Taylor Peterson 5, Jessie Gist 4, Haley Belgarde 4); Assists - Polson 37 (Shalaina Duford 35), Columbia Falls 12 (Erica Nelson 6, Hope Burlage 5); Blocks - Polson (no leader); Columbia Falls 6 (Burlage 2); Digs - Polson 47 (Mackenzie Banner 12, Duford 12), Columbia Falls 60 (Shaun Rowe 13, Nelson 10, Peterson 10); Aces - Polson 6 (Johnson 3), Columbia Falls 6 (Peterson 2, Rowe 2).