Hashley, Wolfpack drop Libby

By DIXIE KNUTSON/The Daily Inter Lake

Eleven kills, two blocks, three service aces.

If Emilee Hashley was looking at Thursday's nonconference volleyball matchup with the Libby Loggers as a warmup for this weekend's Missoula Invitational, it appears she'll be ready to rock.

The Wolfpack (4-4, 6-7) downed visiting Northwestern A Libby 25-14, 25-20, 25-10.

"Our goal was to start the weekend strong. We're kind of treating this like a 3-day tournament. Starting this strong is always good," said Glacier coach Christy Harkins.

"Emilee had a great game, I thought, all the way around," she said.

"We were playing without (middle hitter) Jolee (Kampf), tonight. She sprained her ankle. But I thought the girls did some good things without her," Harkins said.

"We were working on serving aggressive. I thought Emilee served really aggressively today, and Leah (Engebretson) served aggressive. It was nice to get that spark from Leah," Harkins said.

The Wolfpack had plenty of spark.

It started the evening with a 17-7 first game run on the Loggers and never really looked back.

The stats tell the story fairly well.

As a team, the Wolfpack had 29 kills to 19 for the Loggers. It also outdug Libby 46-35 and served six more aces.

Mee finished the evening with 10 kills, two blocks, seven digs and two service aces.

"Any time you can battle hard against a good player like Jackie Mee, that's nice. She can hit the ball and she's a great offensive player. I thought we did a good job of getting some good digs. Kayla got some good digs on her and there were some good touches on the block," Harkins said.

"She's going to get her kills, but it's nice to battle against a good middle. We have a lot of good middles in our conference. It's good practice," she added.

"What I saw, we were playing scared," said Libby coach Cindy Ostrem-Johnson.

"We were scared of making mistakes, and that caused us to hestitate, and it also turned into several errors because we were backing off," she said.

"It didn't seem like we were ready to play. They had tough serves and a good strong attack. They were mixing it up … we couldn't pick up the tips and we didn't react to the tips. We were dug in for the big hit," she added.

The second game was closer.

Libby (6-1, 6-3) battled right with the Wolfpack until the latter part of the game.

"We were a little more hestitant on things. We still passed fairly well, but we stopped swinging as hard and we were a little more hesitant, along with them playing better," Harkins said.

With Glacier up 17-16, though, sophomore Rachel Cutler stepped back and served four straight points - including two service aces.

That provided enough separation for the Wolfpack.

The third game was over quickly.

Glacier served eight aces in that game alone.

"I thought we really had some good aggressive serving, some good net play by Emilee, and they struggled with their passing a little bit," Harkins said.

Both teams are at this weekend's Missoula Invitational.

Kills: Libby 19 (Jackie Mee 10, Gen Meha 3, Alex Kulbeck 3), Glacier 29 (Emilee Hashley 11), Assists: Libby 18 (Jordan Refsland 10, Evi Cernick 5), Glacier 22 (Lindsea Vaudt 22), Blocks: Libby 3 (Mee 2, Katie Emery 2), Glacier 3 (Hashley 2, Kendra Bouley 2), Digs: Libby 35 (Alysha Martin 9, Mee 7), Glacier 46 (Rachel Cutler 10, Kayla Smart 10, Bouley 10), Aces: Libby 5 (Mee 2, Refsland 2), Glacier 11 (Hashley 3, Bouley 3, Smart 3).