Skylights land standout middle from Calgary

The recruiting season continues for the Montana State University-Northern volleyball team.

And MSU-Northern head coach Bill Huebsch has announced the signing of Calgary, Alberta native Sophie Malenfant, a 6-1 middle blocker. Malenfant is a senior at

Sophie was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She is a senior at William Aberhart Senior High school where she played middle on the volleyball team for three seasons.

"Sophie's potential, her room for improvement, her ceiling is unlimited in my eyes," Huebsch said. "She's only been playing volleyball at a higher level really for two years and at the camp we saw her at, she was probably one of the two best players out of over 170 kids that were there.

"She's just that raw, physical middle blocker we're looking for," he added. "She's just very athletic and talented and we're very excited about having her in our program."

Like many Candadian players, Malenfant was also heavily involved in club volleyball. played for North 49 Volleyball Club and has played 17U and 18U with 403 Selects Volleyball Club.

Malenfant is also an all-around standout athlete, having played soccer, basketball and track and field as well as volleyball during her high school career. In 2009, she won the Calgary city meet in the high jump and placed fourth at the provincial meet.

Malenfant is also an excellent student, is fluent in French, has received a school citizenship award and has been an honor student over many terms. She said she chose Northern because of the people and its down to earth feeling, not to mention the small class sizes. She's looking forward to diversifying her skills and playing at the next level

Malenfant is the daughter of Karen and Claude and the big sister to Anne-Marie. She has two small dogs named Zorro and Lola and in her free time likes to cook, listen to music and visit with friends. She plans to study Health Promotion.

Huebsch expects to announce several more signings in the coming weeks.