This time of year, with playoffs on the not-too-distant horizon, fans are looking for that “team to watch.”

Keeping an eye on the surging Plains Trotters volleyball team would be sound advice.

The Trotters picked up a pair of victories this past week, one a sweep and the other a five-set thriller that pushed their season record to 4-3 and lifted them into third place in the Western 7B conference standings.

Plains began the week with a matchup against St. Ignatius, the team they are now statistically tied with in the conference standings. The Trotters emerged from that five-set match with a 3-2 win.

They wrapped up their week with a 3-0 sweep of Superior, also in Plains.

The St. Ignatius match was a grind it out battle the entire way. The visitors took the first set of the match 25-19 to assume a 1-0 match lead.

Plains, as it has done several times this year, shook off that opening set loss and, in a second set that featured numerous ties and lead changes, squared the match at one each with a hard-fought 25-22 win.

Then, St. Ignatius shook off that loss but not without a fight as the Lady Bulldogs held on for an “overtime” 26-24 third set win that gave them a 2-1 match advantage.

Plains responded in a big way, grabbing an early lead in the fourth set and cruising to a 25-11 victory that evened the match at 2-2 and set up a fifth-set tie-breaker.

The tie-breaker was a reflection of the match, with both sides swapping leads and momentum before the Trotters were able to pull away for a 16-14, come-from-behind set triumph and a 3-2 match win.

St. Ignatius had some outstanding individual stats for the match, led by Alecia Steele’s 12 kills and three service aces. They also got 21 assists from Amelia Cronk and 23 digs from Izzy Evans.

However, Plains also had some eye-popping individual efforts, paced by the 46 assists by freshman Claire Lakko, who also had four blocks and four service aces during the match. Lexi Deming led a trio of Trotters with double-figure kills, topping the team with 12, while Blakely Lakko and Teagan Saner had 11 kills each.

Blakely also led the Trotters in service aces with six. Jaelyn Carr had a team high 20 digs, while teammates Taylor Saner and Deming contributed 19 digs each for Plains.

Thursday night Plains hosted Superior, which is still looking for its first win of the season.

Plains took control of the match early, breaking out to a 1-0 match lead via a 25-15 first set win. They improved their match lead to 2-0 with a resounding 25-7 win in the second set.

The Trotters wrapped up the sweep with a 25-14 victory in the third and final set.

That win squared Plains’ conference mark at 3-3.

Junior Braelynn Mangold had a solid game for the Lady Bobcats, recording five kills, two blocks and six digs. Teammate Perri Jasper had six digs and two aces, while Shaylie Smalley had a team best eight digs. Lyla Beaudoin contributed two aces and eight assists for Superior.

Claire Lakko had another outstanding game for Plains, piling up a match best 18 assists to go with five digs and nine aces. Her sister Blakely tied with Deming for the team lead in kills with five each. Blakely also had three service aces, as did Teagan Saner for the Trotters. Taylor Saner led the team with a match best 15 digs.

Next up for the Trotters is a home game this Thursday against Sanders County rival Thompson Falls, which is also Plains’ only scheduled game of this week.

Superior has three games on the schedule this week, beginning with a home match tonight (Oct 10) versus Arlee. The Lady Cats then journey to Troy for a match with the Trojans this Thursday. They return to their home court in Superior Saturday for a match versus conference co-leader Eureka.