Bravettes feeling great after Spokane tournament

Bring on the Helena High Bengals - or anybody else who'd like to play volleyball.

The Flathead Bravettes are basking this week in their third place finish at the 64-team Crossover Classic in Spokane, Wash.

A trip Oct. 20 to Helena to play Class AA's No. 1-ranked - and defending state champion Helena High is next on the Bravette schedule.

The Bravettes can't wait. They'd actually like to play today, right now.

Flathead had a long day on Saturday - 12 hours of volleyball - but got some huge wins at the Spokane tournament - it defeated Post Falls (No. 1 Idaho 5A), Richland (No. 3 Washington 4A) and Mt. Spokane (No. 2 Washington 3A) and it also finished ahead of Meade (No. 1 4A Washington).

It was intimidating at first.

In the words of Flathead senior rightside hitter Kylie Schlegel, "(the other teams) just seemed like they have a lot of experience. They looked like they were really comfortable with a volleyball."

During warm-ups, the Bravettes would watch and think ‘oh my gosh, they're so good!' And then, we beat them," said senior outside hitter Hannah Sackett.

"It was really intense. (The other teams) just have a lot of technique and they're really scrappy," Sackett agreed.

"It was faster volleyball. There were a million things going on at once," she added.

"We played better volleyball than we ever have. That's the most competitive tournament we've ever been to. Some really fast volleyball, but we matched or exceeded them," she said.

"We would shut down their hitters."

And in the back row "Nouf Rashoodi played her best volleyball ever. It was amazing. She was getting everything," Sackett added.

Flathead coach Leon Wilcox is hoping the Bravettes "gain confidence from (the tournament) and see what they can truly do when they work together and work hard.

"It was really good for us to play teams we didn't know anything about. There were no pre-conceived notions about how we should or shouldn't play," he said.

"All we could do was play hard, play our game and our best," Schlegel agreed.

"These are great programs. Teams that are consistenty top in their state. Our girls gained a lot of insight and a lot of confidence. In my opinion, now they will be able to go into league matches with more of an open mind about what they can do," he said.

The day didn't start out very well, however.

Flathead lost to Coeur d'Alene High the night before the tournament, then fell in straight sets first thing Saturday morning to Freeman, Wash.

That prompted a team meeting.

"We had a heart-to-heart. We decided we needed to come together more. We needed to stick together," Schlegel said.

"After that, things just started to fall into place," she said.

"It was definitely the best we've played all season.

"Our communication was at a completely different level. We knew exactly what we were doing," she added.