Polson wins battle against Thompson Falls, then sweeps

conference foe Libby

POLSON - When you're playing the Polson Lady Pirates volleyball team and they appear relaxed, you should be worried. Very worried.

Just ask Libby, who was swept by Polson 3-0 last Saturday as the Lady Pirates came out and looked like a fine-tuned sports car on offense.

"They were really calm," Polson head coach Jan Toth said. "They were able to just work as a team and were able to throw together everything that we have worked on."

Polson jumped out to an 8-1 lead, then extended their advantage to 20-7 en route to a 25-10 first game win.

"The girls really prepared to play tough against Libby," Toth said. "I felt we came out really strong and talked offensively. Anytime it appeared the momentum might change we were able to bounce right back and recover."

The second game was closer, but Polson was able to put some separation between them and the Lady Loggers at 16-9 and cruised to the 25-16 second game win.

The third game was much closer and had plenty of dramatics. Polson did open a 15-10 advantage but Libby stormed back and the two teams found themselves tied at 17-17. For the rest of the game, there were 10 ties before Polson was able to pull away from 27-27 for the 29-27 victory and the match win.

"They did a good job hitting with us," Toth said of the Lady Loggers.

Senior Ashley Johnson, who's quickly acquiring more kills than a professional Halo video game player, had nine kills and senior Riley Kenney also had nine.

"Riley attacked the ball," Toth said. "She was able to pick apart the defense."

Junior setter Shalaina Duford was a machine, dishing out all 28 of Polson's assists in the match.

"Shalaina did a good job finding all of our hitters and finding our hitters that were on," Toth said.

Waiting for those passes were Johnson and Heidi Rausch. Along with their kills, both also had 11 digs on defense.

"Heidi did a great job hitting away from the block," Toth said. "You're going to find a lot of open ground when you do that."

POLSON 3, THOMPSON FALLS 2

Polson came back from two games down for the 3-2 match victory last Thursday as Shalaina Duford continued to cement herself as an impressive setter. Duford had 42 assists in the matchup while Ashley Johnson sent 14 kills past Class B Thompson Falls.

"The girls played a really tough match against Thompson Falls," Toth said.

The Lady Bluehawks collected 25-17, 25-15 victories over the Lady Pirates in the first two games, but as they have already showed plenty of times this season, Polson doesn't go away easily.

The Lady Pirates won the next two games 25-21 and 25-18 to force a fifth and deciding game. Polson came away with the 15-11 victory to clinch the match.

The Lady Pirates collected 90 digs as a team and Mackenzie Banner had 18 of those. Polson also had eight service aces with Johnson, Tina Marquardt and Tanisha Matt all getting a pair.

TEAM NOTES

Polson sits at 4-3 overall on the season and 3-1 in conference play. Their lone loss in conference came to Frenchtown, which fell to Whitefish last week.

"We know that we're going to be as good as everyone in our conference," Toth said.

The Lady Pirates will play at Loyola on Thursday and then at Whitefish on Saturday.