The volleyball season is four weeks old and the early returns for the young teams Glacier and Flathead are encouraging.

The Wolfpack and Bravettes have identical records: 1-1 in Western AA play and 3-5 overall.

Both defeated conference foe Butte and were swept by first-place Missoula Sentinel.

“We only have three seniors, so we’re pretty young,” Glacier coach Christy Harkins said. “Sidney Gulick has the most experience, that is for sure.”

Gulick is a 6-foot outside hitter, and the rest of the squad is pretty young: Sammie Labrum and Jenisha Green are the other seniors.

Haven Speer, a sophomore, is the starting setter.

“We have asked her to take on running the offense, which is a big task,” Harkins said of Speer. “She’s doing a great job of leadership and understanding the intricacies of our offense.”

Four juniors and eight more sophomores fill the varsity/JV roster; junior Madisyn Frazier has had some strong early play, as has sophomore Ella Farrell.

“It’s just exciting to have fans again, and students and parents there,” Harkins said. “Everybody that’s playing, except for Sidney, is on the varsity floor for the first time. I have a JV swing player who’d never been on a varsity road trip because of Covid last year. So it’s just exciting and fun again, now that we’re trying to be normal.”

Flathead has three seniors as well, in 6-foot-1 Savanna Sterck, setter Kylie Munsinger and Alliyah Stevens.

“Savanna is our floor captain,” Flathead coach Emily Russell said. “That means she’s on the court for all six rotations. The seniors are the guiding force on our team, and set the expectations.”

There’s talented youth in sophomore hitter Kennedy Moore and junior middle hitter Akilah Kubi guarding the net. Junior Cyan Mooney and Sterck have been leaders in digs.

“We’re very young, but at the same time we have a lot of the same girls as last year, and the summer,” Russell said. “Which is nice, because we have definitely picked up where we left off. I feel like we’re further along, and that’s really great to see.”

“We haven’t figured out our best rotation. But that’s exciting as well because we have a lot of great things coming and we’re grinding it out every day. We’re just excited to see how great our season is going to be.”

Crosstown soccer

On the heels of Tuesday’s Cat-Dog comes another high school soccer rivalry, with Flathead and Glacier squaring off for crosstown matches at 6 p.m. (girls) and 8 p.m. (boys) today at Legends Stadium.

The Wolfpack boys are favored, having gone 4-1 thus far this season while getting a team-high six goals from sophomore Joey Paolini.

Junior Davis Rennie and erstwhile senior goal keeper John Pyron have three goals each for the Pack, whose plus-22 goal differential is second only to MIssoula Hellgate’s plus-25.

Flathead’s boys, 1-4, have managed goals by sophomore Carter Bullins and senior Dakota Holmes.

Glacier’s girls, coming off their state championship season, are led by sophomore Reagan Brisendine’s five goals. Sophomore Calista Wroble and freshman Emmery Schmidt have three tallies each for the Pack (2-2).

Seniors Ashlynn Whiteman (four goals) and Rylee Barnes (three) lead the Bravettes (1-3).

Tight race

A weird thing popped up when Eureka cross country coach Andrew Gideon looked at the Class B boys rankings on Athletic.net the other day.

If everyone ran their best time at the State B cross country meet, to be Oct. 23 in Missoula, his Lions, the Glasgow Scotties and the Mission Bulldogs would all have the same team score: 119.

The biggest surprise might be Mission, which was eighth at state last year. But not if you ask Gideon.

“No, I watched them last spring,” he said. “I was watching Andrew Rush in track last year. And Zoren LaFromboise scored 37 points on us (in basketball).”

LaFrombois, a junior, sits 10th in B at 17 minutes, 41.9 seconds; Rush has the best time in the class at 16:42.9.

In second is Eureka senior Issac Reynolds at 16:54.4, and Gideon is pleased with the rapid progress of senior Gavin Bates (17:34.9), junior Jacob Buckingham (18:53.8) and sophomore Parker Bates (18:54.4).

“My kids improved when they weren’t supposed to,” said Gideon, who also has sophomore Michael Pittman and senior Joey Chase just on the outside of the 18-minute range. “I wasn’t planning on having Jacob, Parker and Michael running in the 18s. They were supposed to be in the 19s a couple more weeks and then magically come down at the end to look like I coached.”

The Bulldogs and Lions should match up at Saturday’s Mountain West Invitational in Missoula, and again at Thompson Falls next Thursday.

Glasgow’s leader? Freshman Kyler Holinde, who ran 17:56.1. Gideon also notes Bigfork (130 projected points), is still in range, as is Three Forks.

“Any of those five teams can win it,” Gideon said. “It depends on Covid and how the rest of the season goes.”

It will be a battle to the end, and maybe then some. A tie is rare, but Townsend’s girls edged Manhattan 59-60 for last year’s B title, and Manhattan Christian’s girls edged Seeley-Swan 29-30 at the State C.

“The cool thing would be our No. 6 kid (Chase) would win it,” Gideon noted. “That would be really cool.”