Flathead, Glacier take to road with State at stake

For both Flathead and Glacier, extending the 2024 volleyball season comes down to a pair of road matches on Thursday.

The Flathead Bravettes play at Missoula Hellgate and the Glacier Wolfpack are in Butte for State AA play-in matches. The winners qualify for the State AA tournament alongside Missoula Sentinel and Helena, in Bozeman Nov. 14-16. 

Both contests start at 7 p.m. 

Glacier is 9-16 overall and 8-6 in Western AA matches, which left the Wolfpack fifth in the league standings while Butte (11-14, 9-5) was fourth.  

Two of the Bulldogs’ losses came at the hands of the Wolfpack, who boast one of the top passers and defensive players in the league in Kenedee Moore. Cassidy Daniels is a highly-rated passer for the Pack as well and sits 10th in AA in aces. Grace Lingle and Allie Krueger are leaders at the net. 

Butte’s standouts include setter Jaycee Cleveland; Cadence Graham is best in the Western AA in digs.  

“Making the road trip to Butte is always challenging,” Glacier coach Christy Harkins said. “Butte prepares well for every match; they play tenaction defense and make tearms earn their kills. It should be a great battle.” 

Flathead (7-18 overall, 6-8 in league) dropped both its regular-season matchups with Hellgate (11-13, 9-5) without taking a set.  

The Knights took the third seed because of Glacier’s two wins over Butte and have one of the top hitters in the state in freshman Cady Schneider and top setters in senior Moana Massey. 

The Bravettes are led by, among others, sophomore setter Anna Bain. Junior Ava Dyment and senior Kendall Kratofill are two of the league’s top three in service aces. Emma Eve, Bristol Lenz, Addison Smith and Zellah Boles have all been good at the net this season. 

”The Bravettes are excited for the opportunity to take on hellgate,” coach Emily Russell said. “It’s going to be a great game. Here we come.”