Prep Volleyball: Wolfpack too much for Bulldogs

WHITEFISH - Lexy Boschee had 11 kills and Paige Latimer turned in 30 assists and six services as the Glacier Wolfpack made fairly quick work Saturday of host Whitefish in a nonconference volleyball matchup.

Scores were 25-14, 25-15 and 25-22.

The first two games were over in the blink of an eye.

Glacier (6-6, 3-3) blasted out of the gate, getting kills with nearly every swing.

Glacier coach Christy Harkins complimented the efforts of Rachel Cutler, Leah Engebretson and Baylee Quay.

"I liked seeing my girls come out aggressive today," Harkins said.

"For us, it's good to get a look at teams who run different things. Class AA teams do similar stuff. These guys hit a lot of deep corners, hit a lot of twos (sets) in the middle, they have a lefty in the middle. It's a different look for us," Harkins said.

The third game, though, was much more intense.

The Wolfpack got up 3-0, but the Bulldogs bounced back to go ahead 12-7.

"Whitefish did a great job in Game 3, putting together some great defensive plays ... and that tested my hitters quite a bit. (The Glacier hitters) started making mistakes and it was nice to see them come back from that," Harkins said.

"Whitefish kept sending the ball over and we had to make some adjustments and that was good for us," she said.

The Glacier hitters had five errors in a 10-point stretch. Added to that were two net serves, three kills and one ball that dropped on a miscommunication. The Bulldog lead eventually reached 16-10.

"I asked them to go out and fight," said Whitefish coach Jackie Fuller. "That's all I asked for and they did. But yet, we had a 6-point lead and we let that slip away," she said.

Glacier's comeback started with a tip by McKell Bennett at 17-12, followed by a service ace by Kendra Bouley.

Whitefish still maintained a three to four point advantage, but eventually nerves got to the Bulldogs - they served into the net at 22-19, then followed that up by being aced. A Boschee kill and suddenly the score was 22-all.

"We came back in Game 3, but we played Games 1 and 2 like we were scared to death," Fuller said.

"We had no intention of winning. Give Glacier all the credit in the world. They came out and they were coming after us offensively. Their outside hitters were getting up, swinging hard. They put it to us. They put it to us bad," she said.

"That's it ... they played in fear and that's too bad," Fuller said.

"There was no belief they could compete with that school. I give Glacier all the credit in the world. They're a good ballclub and Christy does a phenomenal job with them," she said.

"But it's very frustrating to me that our kids didn't come out with the expectation they will win. You cannot play the game of volleyball if you don't expect to win. It's very frustrating right now and (the Bulldogs) better be frustrated.

"I don't think we got anything (out of the match) and I don't think they got anything. We sure didn't provide Glacier an opportunity to make themselves better. I don't think we gave them anything tonight and I feel real bad about that. We are sorry about that," Fuller said.

"We learned a very valuable lesson. We better expect to win when we hit the floor. We've got to develop that. We will win when we play. That's something we used to have here a lot ... and I'm not seeing it right now," she said.

Whitefish leaders were Kaitlyn Wehrli with five kills, Olivia Nagler with eight assists and Molly Filipek with 10 digs and one ace.

Kills: Glacier 36 (Lexy Boschee 11), Whitefish 14 (Kaitlyn Wehrli 5, Jessica Slaybaugh 3); Assists: Glacier 34 (Paige Latimer 30), Whitefish 14 (Olivia Nagler 8, Slaybaugh 5), Digs: Glacier 49 (Leah Engebretson 19), Whitefish 47 (Molly Filipek 10, Slaybaugh 9); Blocks: Glacier 5 (Baylee Quay 2, McKell Bennett 2), Whitefish 3 (Taylor Havens 1, Abby Strellnaur 1); Aces: Glacier 15 (Latimer 6), Whitefish 2 (Filipek 1, Heather Bailey 1).