Bravettes rally by Bruins

So, what did Leon Wilcox say to the Flathead Bravettes between the first two sets of Thursday's Western AA state play-in match?

The Bravettes had just dropped the first set to visiting Helena Capital.

According to middle hitter Danika Johnson, Wilcox told the Bravettes to start fighting and step up.

Outside hitter Mary Allen said the coach informed the girls they had to get the defense going in order to fuel the offense - but that was during the first timeout of the second game, with Flathead trailing 10-13.

Whatever it was, the Bravettes must have paid attention because they rallied for a 18-25, 25-22, 26-24, 25-21 victory over the Bruins.

We'll never really know, because Wilcox himself can't remember exactly what he said.

"It just came down to trying to give them the confidence, let them know we were confident in their abilities and that if they played their best they deserved to win. They just had to play their best game," he said.

Things didn't look too encouraging for the Bravettes in the early going, as Capital claimed the first set, 25-18.

"Capital came out here to win and (the Bruins) played better tonight than we had seen them all season long," Wilcox said.

"(The Bruins) were fantastic. Their passing, their defense was great. Their libero was dynamite. She had Hannah Sackett's number," Wilcox said.

"Capital just flat got after it. I don't think we were quite ready for that," Wilcox said.

"Most of my kids haven't been in this situation before. But to their credit, they really turned it around and stepped up.

"One of the keys for us tonight, we started setting (freshman) Cassie Krueger and they had not prepared for Cassie, probably didn't even know who Cassie was hardly ... and she had 10 kills and one error and that was really critical for us," he said.

"We fought hard and we played hard. But when it was tight, Flathead executed a little bit better than we did. They swung to the open court a little bit better than we did. In matches like this, when teams are fighting hard, it's the little things that make the difference," said Capital coach Sarah Urban.

"We played hard. We played like we had nothing to lose and we came out hard. But it doesn't make it any easier," she said.

Sackett led the Bravettes with 19 kills. Allen contributed 33 digs and three aces and Kwyn Johnson, Danika Johnson and Krueger had four blocks each.

"We started out kind of timid, just wanted to give the crowd a little excitement, I guess," Allen said.

"We didn't come into this match thinking it was going to be easy at all. They have lots of talent. We've played them in the past, so we knew what they had to bring," she said.

"We did lots of pregame stuff to get mentally prepared and we thought we were going there with full throttle and everything, but it didn't end up seeming that way. We kind of beat ourselves with missed serves and our own errors. They weren't beating us. We were beating ourselves," she said.

"We were off," agreed Danika Johnson.

"We had a lot of mistakes. We just weren't ready for how they came out and played and we just didn't bring it," she said.

After that first set the Bravettes decided, "let's just pull our own act together and play the game we know how to play," Allen said.

"We were mad. We knew we need to win and we weren't going to let our season end here," Johnson said.

Things really started to turn around on Krueger's first block during the second game. Flathead was down 14-16 at that point, but that got the Bravettes within a point and put Sackett on the service line.

Between her jump serves and steady hitting from Krueger and Allen, Flathead went up 18-16. Krueger added two more kills in that game and Sackett put the ball down on the final two points to give Flathead a 25-22 win.

The next two games were nip and tuck.

Capital went up 9-4 to start the third only to watch as the Bravettes rallied back to go up 13-11. After that, neither team led by more than two points.

By that time, the Bravettes were in control of their own nerves.

"Even if we got down, we didn't let down," Allen said.

The fourth game was more of the same - the biggest lead for either side was two points.

Flathead didn't take control until Wilcox put Annika Thorderson in to serve with the Bravettes leading 20-19.

By the time she finished, Flathead had match point.

"I believe her serving was key. She served bullets and she took them out of their offense. "Once we started getting closer to that 25, Capital was more and more timid. She just kept coming after them. That fourth game was so tight and she darn near put it away for us."

That job fell to Danika Johnson - she smacked a cross court shot that Capital dug up, but in the process of getting the ball back over the net, one of the Bruins went under the net.

"Someone had to put it down. I was just ready for it. I was ready to finish the game. The set was good, the pass was good, it's up to hitters to finish," Johnson said.

Flathead defeat Helena Capital 18-25, 25-22, 26-24, 25-21

Kills: Capital 42 (Kelsey Robertson 14, Sami Bignell 9, Paulina Misarova 9), Flathead 47 (Hannah Sackett 19, Cassie Krueger 10), Assists: Capital 38 (Emily Burk 36), Flathead 44 (Alison Lunde 41), Blocks: Capital 8 (Kaci Matthies 3), Flathead 11 (Kwyn Johnson 4, Danika Johnson 4, Cassie Krueger 4) Digs: Capital 70 (Desiree Schauman 22, Misarova 17), Flathead 103 (Mary Allen 33, Jaimee Zorn 21), Aces: Capital 12 (Schauman 4, Misarova 3, Leigh Zanto 3), Flathead 10 (Sackett 3, Allen 3).