Class AA Volleyball: Flathead clips Big Sky in last regular season match

Flathead’s seven-member senior class made an ‘emotional adjustment’ after dropping back-to-back sets on Saturday afternoon, rallying to beat Missoula Big Sky in their final home match, 25-13, 23-25, 20-25, 25-15, 15-9.

The Bravettes were near perfect in a dominating first set win, but were pushed to the brink by a feisty Big Sky side.

With her team trailing, Flathead coach Courtney Baker described the change she saw before the fourth set.

“It turned out to just be an emotional adjustment,” she said.

“The girls just decided that they weren’t going to let this happen on their senior night.”

Flathead (16-6, 10-2 Western AA) never trailed in the last two sets, opening up a 5-1 lead in the deciding fifth set behind three quick Tiana Johnson kills. Johnson finished with a match-high 16 kills, including five in the final set.

“(Johnson) uses her emotions in a valuable way and gets powerful,” Baker said.

“For her to have those amazing kills in that (fifth) set, though, our defense was giving perfect passes and Xio (Lopp) was finding her. It really was the team that allowed her to get to those spots.”

Johnson also led the Bravettes in blocks with four.

Lopp, Flathead’s senior setter, assisted on 46 of her team’s 57 kills. The Bravettes offense was especially deadly in the first set, putting down kills on 17 of their 25 points, led by five in the set from fellow senior Marisa Postovit.

“(The seniors) came out with a lot of fire,” Baker said.

“I know it’s been an emotional couple of days for the seniors just building up so there was a lot going on, emotionally, for them.”

Another senior, Lizzie Sherwood, had a match-high 30 digs. Classmates Trista Pemberton, Abbie O’Brien, Jourdon Schulz and Sophie Asa also contributed to the win.

The Bravettes were locked into the Western Conference’s second seed in the Class AA state tournament regardless of Saturday’s result, and will now have 11 days off before beginning play at the state tournament in Bozeman on November 12.

“I’ve reached out to a bunch of coaches — football coaches, volleyball coaches — saying ‘what do you do on a week off?’,” the first-year Bravettes coach said.

“We’re going do go back to the basics. We’re going to do a lot of skill work, we’re going to do a community scrimmage on Thursday night and we’re going to have a sleepover,” Baker added with a laugh.

“We’re not even going to look a lot towards state at the beginning of the week, we’re just going to look at ourselves and what we can fix here.”

Flathead opens tournament play at 2 p.m. on November 12 against the third seed from the Eastern Conference. The top two seeds from each conference receive byes into the tournament, with the remainder of the eight-team field to be determined via play-in matches next week.

Flathead def. Missoula Big Sky 25-13, 23-25, 20-25, 25-15, 15-9

Kills — Big Sky 37 (Anna Gragg 14), Flathead 57 (Tiana Johnson 16). Assists — Big Sky 37 (Kelsi McEnaney 34), Flathead 50 (Xio Lopp 46). Digs — Big Sky 67 (Macey Newbary 27), Flathead 98 (Lizzie Sherwood 30). Blocks — Big Sky 14 (Gragg 8), Flathead 6 (Johnson 4). Aces — Big Sky 4 (Quincy Preston 2), Flathead 7 (Abbie Chavez 3)