The Plains Trotters aren’t sitting in the most optimum position heading into this week’s District 14C Volleyball Tournament at Hot Springs High School. However, coach Jess Butcher is still optimistic they will come out better than they what they went in.

Sitting fifth out of six teams on the ladder, the Trotters are set to finish the season as strong as they can. Plains faces Noxon in a first-round match at 11:45 a.m. Thursday.

Butcher said that her team is looking good over the last week in practice and are more than ready to head into districts.

Considering the loss the Plains team had last Tuesday against Arlee, it was said it wasn’t from lack of trying. Set scores for the victorius Scarlets were 26-24, 25-27, 25-22 and 25-23.

During the last home match, the girls went down only just by a small margin. The match saw some impressive rallies between the two teams — and some strange point climbs on the scoreboard.

Both teams pulled out some impressive tricks along the net, and also some mistakes that gave the opposing side the advantage.

Even though the Trotters took the loss, Butcher is still impressed with her side this season. Knowing the dynamic changed with key players having graduated last year, her young guns have stepped up in true Totter fashion.

Haley Josephson had four of Plains’ nine aces against Arlee, Kylee Altmiller secured 18 of the team’s 49 kills, while Rachel Huenink secured 16. Audrey Brown got 23 of the 88 digs, Altmiller got four of Plains’ six blocks, while both Dakota Butcher and Josephson secured 14 assists each of 40 for the match.

The winner of Thursday’s Plains-Noxon first-round match advances to play top-seeded Charlo at 3:15 p.m. later in the day. The top two finishers in the double-elimination tournament qualifies for the Western C Divisional Tournament Nov. 1-3 in Manhattan.