Lady Jackets Close Volleyball Season with Pair against Western New Mexico (Nov. 12, 2003)

BILLINGS, MT – The 2003 regular season comes to an end for the MSU Billings volleyball team this week when the Lady Yellowjackets host Western New Mexico on Thursday and Friday.  The Yellowjackets, 6-18 overall and 2-7 in the PacWest, have won three of their last five matches and two conference matches in a row.  Western New Mexico, 16-13, 3-6, is one of the hottest teams in the conference having won eight straight including its last three PacWest matches.

Both matches will start at 7:00 p.m. at Alterowitz Gymnasium.  Earlier in the season it appeared that the matches would have to be moved off campus due to an education conference scheduled to use Alterowitz.  The conference was eventually cancelled, allowing the Yellowjackets to wrap up their season—and the seniors to finish their careers—at Alterowitz. 

MSU Billings earned two-day splits with Chaminade and Hawaii-Hilo over the past two weeks, winning the conference matches and losing the non-conference matches.  Olivia Munro (Jr., Toronto, Ontario), who is on the all-conference ballot, leads the team with 3.94 kills per game, seventh-best in the PacWest.  She also ranks sixth in the PacWest for digs per game with 3.29. 

“The way the conference is right now, we’re trying to get to three PacWest wins and create a big tie in the conference standings,” said Yellowjacket head coach Pa’ulasi Matavao.  “BYU-Hawaii and Hawaii Pacific are definitely above everyone else in the conference, but after that we’re all pretty competitive with each other.”

At her current pace—Munro, who began the year No. 9 on the career kills list at MSUB—will break the school record sometime late next season.  She is currently No. 5 all-time with 852 kills, including 327 this season.  The school record of 1,143 is held by Brandee Sayles.  Munro also climbed from No. 10 to No. 4 on the career list for digs (913) and from No. 8 to No. 3 for service aces (86) this year.

Jessica Bratton (Fr., Casper, WY) has had an increasing impact as the season has progressed.  Just a year removed from being a high school star in Wyoming, she is second on the Yellowjackets with 2.82 kills per game and tied for fourth on the team with 2.14 digs per game.  Cortney Metzler (Jr., Roundup, MT) is third on the team with 2.28 kills per game and had a big week last week, posting a .353 hitting percentage in two matches against Hawaii-Hilo.

“We’re definitely better than we were than in the middle of the season,” added Matavao.  “We’ve had some kids come around and you always want your team to improve by the end of the year.  It really helped to play the last six games at home.  That month-long road stretch in the middle of the season was hard on us.  We had a young team trying to come together and we were doing it all on the road.”

Katrina Dahlgren (Sr., Missoula, MT) is the only four-year senior on the team.  Also playing their final matches as Yellowjackets are Sandy Beal (Sr., Troy, MT) who transferred to MSUB as a junior last year, and Brittany Uffelman (Sr., Thermopolis, WY) who transferred from Black Hills State for her senior season.

Dahlgren is fourth on the team with a 1.88 kpg average.  She leads the Yellowjackets and is fourth in the PacWest for blocks at 1.10 per game.  Dahlgren, who has played 323 games as a Yellowjacket (No. 5 all-time), has climbed the school record lists in a couple categories this season.  She has posted 85 total blocks this season to move to No. 2 in school history with 329.  She is also No. 2 all-time with 110 solo blocks and No. 2 with 219 block assists. 

“Katrina has been a nice surprise for us during her career,” said Matavao.  “She has really improved in her four years her.  She’s done very well with the skills she has and she’s made a great career for herself at MSUB.” 

Beal is averaging 0.83 kills and 0.69 digs per game this season.  As a junior she averaged 0.93 kills and 0.34 digs per game.  Beal had a career-high six total blocks in the first meeting with Western New Mexico this year.  Uffelman averages 0.68 kills and is tied for fourth on the team with 2.14 digs per game.  She posted her second-best defensive performance of the season with 15 kills in the first meeting with Western New Mexico and a season-high 16 digs against Rocky Mountain three weeks ago.  She has picked up double-digit digs in five of the last seven matches.

The Mustangs are led by Elizabeth Narkon and Kim Tano who each average over three kills per game.  Laree Green, last week’s PacWest Player of the Week, averages 2.16 kills and leads the conference with 1.14 blocks per game.  Western New Mexico’s current eight-match winning streak is the second longest in the conference and has offset an eight-match losing streak in the middle of the season.