Skylights start fresh with home matches

The Beauty of playing a 14-game conference schedule in Frontier Conference volleyball is this ... the league took a break at the halfway point, and the second half of the season can be looked at as a fresh start.

And that's exactly how the Montana State University-Northern Skylights are looking at it. Northern, which went just 1-6 in league play through the first half of the season, emerges from the bye week to host the Lewis-Clark State Warriors tonight, and the Montana Tech Orediggers Saturday night. Both matches get underway at 7 p.m. in the Armory Gymnasium.

"We've talked this last week about how, through the first half of the season, we did see a lot of improvement, and that's important," Northern head coach Bill Huebsch said. "But we also understand, we're not where we need to be. But we can put that behind us now. This is a new season.

"We've made some changes, both on offense and defense, to hopefully give us a spark," he continued. "Hopefully some of those changes will jump-start us, and we can go on and see a much different result in these last seven conference matches."

The glaring change needed to make a second-half charge is offensively. The Skylights are hitting just .124 as a team this season, and they have just 667 kills. Both of those are last in a Frontier Conference with some very powerful teams. Defensively, while Huebsch wants to see his team continue to make strides, the Skylights have played well at times. Northern is fifth in the league with 128.5 blocks. And he says, in both matches this weekend, blocking and defense will be critical, as will hitting at a much cleaner pace.

"When we block well, and we have at times this season, and play good defense behind our block, we're pretty competitive," Huebsch said. "When that goes away, we kind of go away. So that's where we need to be much more consistent. And in both of these matches, we need to see that consistency, and on the other side, we have to terminate the ball when we get chances. We have to start being much more consistent offensively. And hopefully we will see that in this next two matches."

Individually, the Skylights are led by Dayna Jensen, who has a team-high 192 kills as well as 193 digs. Jessica Wilcox has 135 kills and a team-high 18 solo blocks, while Erin Jensen has 142 kills and 12 blocks. Carlie Haefner and Taylor Woolman have also started to come on strong with their presence at the net, while sophomore Sarah Stringfellow is really coming of age in the back row. Stringfellow has 120 digs on the season, as well as a team-high 20 aces.

And while improvement and adjustments are the name of the game for the Skylights going forward, they will have their hands full when it comes to turning those things into victories this weekend.

Tonight's match brings in LC State (5-2, 11-7), which swept Northern in three short games back in September, and is alone in second place in the league standings. The Warriors are paced by the powerful hitting of Treneisha Doyle (5-9), who has 187 kills on the season. LCSC also presents a huge challenge at the net, with middle hitters Chelsea Strong (6-0) and Desiree Nelson (6-1) leading the way. Defensively, junior libero Russia Robinson is one of the best in the league, and she is tops in the Frontier with 26 service aces.

"Size is a big factor," Huebsch said of the Warriors. "But what makes them really tough is they are a very mature team, a very experienced team. And they just don't make a lot of mistakes. They don't beat themselves with unforced errors, which means we can't do that against them. It means we have to play very consistent volleyball. We've seen them (Warriors) once now, and we know more what to expect from them. And we know we're going to have to play much better, especially defensively, against them this time around."

The same can be said for Saturday night's opponent. Montana Tech (3-4, 8-11) also walloped the Skylights in three sets last time around, and like LCSC, the Orediggers pack plenty of punch on offense. Sydney Norris (5-9) and Korey Krumm (5-9) lead the Diggers in kills, but middle blockers Ballie Cortner (6-2) and Haley Druyvestein (6-1) present a stern block at the net. Libero Kimmy Kavran has also led the Frontier in digs in each of the last two seasons, and she's got 369 more this year, as Tech is once again a tough defensive squad.

"Tech is another team that when they get going, they are really tough to defend," Huebsch said. "They are a young team that is really coming of age, and they have played really well at times this season. They've beaten some really good teams, and they certainly took it to us when we played them in Butte. So again, we just can't show the same inconsistencies that we did the first time we played them."

And that's the name of the game for the young Skylights right now, to get better and be better in the second half of the season. The goal for MSU-N has always been to be playing its best volleyball come November, and this weekend's matches can be the first step in doing so.

"I think we've figured a lot out since the beginning of conference play," Huebsch said. "Everybody in the league has improved through seven matches, but I think we can go out and show we've improved, too. We've made some changes that should help us with that, and I'm anxious to see those changes in action. I think we're going to keep improving throughout the rest of the season, and I hope that's what we see with these first two matches at home."

Tonight's match between Northern and LC State starts at 7 in the Armory Gymnasium. Saturday night's match against Tech will also start at 7 p.m.