DILLON — Montana Western came back from a two-game deficit and finished off its home volleyball schedule Wednesday night with a 21-25, 20-25, 25-18, 25-15, 15-9 win over rival Montana Tech in Frontier Conference action.
It was the last regular-season match for both teams. Their next competitions will be in the conference tournament Nov. 11-12 in Helena. Montana Tech will be playing regular-season champion Lewis-Clark State and Western will be going against second-place finisher Rocky Mountain.
Montana Tech went 0-14 in league play and the Bulldogs were 2-12 with both or their Frontier victories victimizing the Orediggers.
“We were down two games,” Western head coach Lisa Griffiths said. “Unforced errors doomed us in the first two games. Then game three came and I knew the seniors weren't done. They were ready to go out right on their home floor.
“We corrected our unforced error issue and were able to take those games fairly handily.”
The Bulldog seniors are Kayla Schmid and Susanne Rehse. They combined for 25 of the team's 54 kills. Schmid also had 14 digs and Rehse blocked a couple of Montana Tech shots and aced three serves.
“We won the first two games and I felt we executed our gameplan fairly well wit our blocking schemes and hitting schemes,” Montana Tech head coach Marilyn Tobin said. “We came out flat in the third game and shot ourselves in the foot.
“We had 37 hitting errors for the match and that's a lot of points for the other team. A huge factor was the hitting percentages. Theirs were all positives and several of ours were negatives.”
Western hit .208 as a team, led by freshman Emily Erickson at .471 with seven kills.
The Orediggers hit .081. Shersteen Cline, however, led all spikers with 17 kills and Emily Lobnitz pounded 10. Montana Tech libero Allyse Cruise had 20 digs. She also fired three service aces.
“Our seniors led us tonight,” Griffiths said. “They're everything we want University of Montana Western volleyball to be. Kayla and Susie played great. Emily Erickson is only a freshman and I can't wait to see how far she will go.”
Tobin noticed their play, too.
“Emily Erickson really sparked their team in hitting,” the Oredigger coach said. “We couldn't stop her. Adn we had a
hard time getting the ball over the net on our side.
“It was frustrating after winning the first two games. On the positive side, we outblocked them 5-4 and I felt we had some nice blocks.”
