Flathead's fast start falls short with Spartans
The Western AA volleyball league is anybody's to claim.
The Flathead Bravettes found that out Saturday afternoon.
The Bravettes built a two sets to none lead over visiting Missoula Sentinel, only to watch it slip through their fingers in a 5-set Spartan victory.
Scores were 20-25, 22-25, 25-19, 25-13, 15-13.
"This (conference) is wide open," said Sentinel coach Patrick Hiller.
"It's a matter of who is going to be playing on a particular night and who is going to get rolling toward the end."
Sentinel lost a 5-setter earlier this week to Helena High, while Flathead picked up a big win over crosstown rival Glacier. Glacier beat Helena last weekend.
"Any time you win, you win. Everybody is beating everybody," Hiller said.
"Like I told the girls, this was a test. See what you can become. Last year we never had any tests. The tests came at state and we weren't ready for it."
Saturday's match had both coaches shaking their heads.
The Bravettes played well "in patches," said Flathead coach Leon Wilcox.
"Even in the first two games, I don't think we were as on top of our game as we could have been. I think Sentinel was really down," he said.
Hiller put it even plainer.
"When you start off that bad … we never actually got good. We've got some things to work on," he said.
"Obviously, we can play better than that. But it was still a gutsy win," he said.
"We've got a few athletes who can put some balls down, but ball control was unbelievably bad. Jen Keddy (Sentinel's 6-foot-4 senior middle) just had to touch every ball over. Tip it, do whatever. There wasn't an angle we could hit the ball," he said.
The Spartans also couldn't seem to serve the ball in the court.
They missed five serves in the first set, 15 in the match.
Meanwhile, more went right for Flathead in the early going.
Senior outside hitter Ariel Johnson opened the match with three straight kills. Added to that were three kills from senior middle Hana Burton and several Spartan errors.
Flathead built itself a 6-0 lead to start the second set, and led 19-14 and 24-20, but the tide started to turn as Sentinel got a back row kill from Keddy and the Bravettes buried the ball in the net on two straight hitting attempts.
Flathead claimed the win on a Sentinel hitting error.
But Keddy was just getting warmed up. She came alive with six kills - she had 27 in the match - in the third game.
"(The Spartans) snapped back in Game 3 and we were kind of in cruise control," Wilcox said.
"We didn't quite snap out of it. We just kind of kept going in that same mode. I told them that Sentinel was going to come out fighting, because they had to," Wilcox added.
"Keddy came around in that third game and became more of a factor for them. That kind of fired up the rest of their team. They kind of rallied around Keddy."
The fourth set was more Keddy - four kills, three stuff blocks and a 25-13 win.
Flathead battled back in the fifth game. It took a 12-10 lead, but it never found a solution for Keddy.
She finished the match with 27 kills, five from the back row. She also led Sentinel with six service aces, 14 digs and four blocks.
Ariel Johnson led Flathead with five aces and 17 kills. Megan Olszewski had 16 digs and Chaela Liss had 26 assists.
"There were definitely some good moments, some things we did well," Wilcox said.
"We're way ahead of where we were a week and a half ago. I'd say we're much further ahead than that. But I'm not OK with just being better. I want us to be our best."
Kills - Sentinel 42 (Jennifer Keddy 27, Morgan McCarthy 5), Flathead 34 (Ariel Johnson 17), Assists - Sentinel 35 (Sara Stocker 19), Flathead 30 (Chaela Liss 26), Blocks - Sentintel 6 (Keddy 4, McCarthy 1), Flathead 5 (Danika Johnson 3), Digs - Sentinel 46 (Keddy 14, Bailey Branson 12), Flathead 58 (Megan Olszewski 16), Aces - Sentinel 12 (Keddy 6), Flathead 13 (A. Johnson 5).