Lady Jackets Breeze through Bears (10/26/05)
Box Score

BILLINGS, MT – On the scoreboard, on the stat sheet, and on the floor, the Montana State-Billings volleyball team dominated from start to finish Wednesday night in a 3-0 sweep of visiting Rocky Mountain College.  The Yellowjackets trailed just twice the entire match in improving to 19-5 on the season.  Rocky lost for the tenth time in the last 12 matches to fall to 12-13.

“Overall we did a lot of good things tonight,” said Yellowjacket coach Pa’ulasi Matavao.  “Our blocking was better.  The younger kids played well tonight, too.  Taylor Faught, Jessica Lechner, and Nicole Kruse had really nice nights.”

MSU Billings cruised through the first two games without trailing, winning 30-25 and 30-21.  The Yellowjackets may have hit the cruise control a little early as Rocky stuck close for the first half of the third game.  The Bears’ only leads of the night were at 12-11 and 13-12 in the third game.  After a Natalie Bills (Provo, UT) kill tied the game at 13-13, the Lady Jackets put the game away with 16-4 run to win going away, 30-18 

The Yellowjackets out-hit the Bears .282 to .051 in the match.  Rocky’s highest single-game attack percentage was .081 in the third game while MSU Billings hit over .300 in two of the three games.  The Jackets had a 54-29 advantage on kills and 57-35 for digs.

Ali Watson (Jr., Calgary, Alberta) and Alicia Cazemier (So., Vauxhall, Alberta) led all players with 14 kills apiece.  Cazemier, the top blocker in the Heartland Conference, set a career high for digs with 10.  She was also in on four blocks.  Jessica Bratton (Jr., Casper, WY) added 10 kills and four blocks.  All three players hit over .220 for the match.

Lechner (Fr., Huntley, MT) was on key all night.  After singing the national anthem before the match, she knocked down eight kills on 16 attempts without an error for a .500 attack percentage.  Kruse (So., Huntley, MT) and Faught (Fr., Billings, MT) combined for 19 digs.  Bills handed out a match-high 43 assists to go with 10 digs and four assists.  Alexis Sandru (Jr., Twin Bridges, MT) also picked up 10 digs to go with four kills.

Rocky was led by a dozen kills from Bethany Kost on a .242 attack percentage.  Kelly Fox added seven kills.  Jen Buening had 11 digs to lead the Bears defense. 

“I think we have improved since the first Rocky match,” said Matavao.  “The difference between the first Rocky match and tonight was that our kids were so pumped up to play at home.  We haven’t had a home game in a long time.  The timing of it was good.  The kids wanted to play in front of our fans.  They wanted to display what kind of team we were in front of their friends and families.”

MSU Billings hadn’t played a home match since September 24.  The Yellowjackets defeated the Bears 3-1 at Rocky on September 27 in their last match played north of Oklahoma.  The Lady Jackets now have a 25-9 all-time record against the Bears.

The Yellowjackets finish the regular season November 4 and 5 with two of their biggest matches of the season when they host conference rival Incarnate Word.  Those two matches could be important in determining seeding in the Heartland Conference Championship Tournament that runs November 11-12.  Friday’s match begins at 7:00 p.m.  Saturday’s is an afternoon match starting at 2:00.

“All of our kids are healthy,” said Matavao of the stretch run.  “We have nagging injuries here and there, but everyone has those.  We’re going into the tournament at the right time.  We’ve had some rest and we’ll be fresh.  I think the kids are hungry for the tournament.  It’s the first time we’ve been in a conference tournament and they’re ready for it.  Our goal at the beginning of the year was to get into the tournament.  Anything can happen once you get there.”