Skylights fall in three sets to the Battlin' Bears

Coming out of the bye week, the Montana State University-Northern volleyball team was looking to start the second half of the season strong against Rocky Mountain College at Armory Gymnasium on Friday night. Despite some competitive sets, the Skylights fell short as they lost in three sets (25-19, 27-25, 25-14) to the visiting Battlin' Bears.

Since his team was coming off a break, MSU-N head coach Jerry Wagner was disappointed with the outcome.

"We lost our edge," Wagner said.

"I feel bad because we were rested and had a couple of weeks off. I don't think we were rusty but we lost our edge."

As a team, the Skylights finished the match with a hitting percentage of 0.040. Alyssa Pretty Weasel led the team with nine kills while Emily Feller recorded 31 assists. In total, the Skylights only recorded two service aces and 3.0 total blocks in the contest.

The Bears posted a hitting percentage of 0.168 in the match. More importantly, the Bears edged out the Skylights with five service aces and 10.0 total blocks. Kyra Oakland, Rhiannon Nez and Makenna Bushman each had seven kills against the Skylights.

The Bears jumped out of the gates to start the first set as they raced out to an 8-1 lead. After the Skylights scored two straight points, the Bears continued to roll to stretch their lead to 12-6.

After a slow start, the Skylights found a rhythm with a 7-1 run to tie the set 13-13. After the Bears scored to retake the lead, back-to-back kills by Macee Murphy and Pretty Weasel gave the Skylights a 16-14 lead.

"During that stretch, we sided out well," Wagner said. "(Feller) served the right person, they passed badly, we blocked well, we dug some balls and that's what we were expecting to do more often."

But the Skylights could not continue their strong play as the Bears came storming back. Over the next few minutes, the Bears went on an 8-3 run to take a 22-17 lead. The Skylights tried to fight their way back, but Rocky held on to win the set, 25-19, to take a 1-0 lead in the match.

The second set was a competitive outing between the two squads. After an early 4-4 tie, the Bears went on a run to stretch their lead to 12-7. After the Skylights scored two straight points, the Bears responded to push their lead to 16-11.

Just like the first set, the Skylights found a rhythm to come back. Over the next few minutes, the Skylights went on a 9-4 run to tie the set 20-20. After the Skylights scored to take the lead, a kill and a block by Graves on back-to-back plays gave Northern a 23-20 lead.

With their backs against the wall, the Bears responded with a 3-0 run to tie the set 23-23. Over the next few minutes, the Skylights and Bears fought to a stalemate of 25-25. With the set on the line, the Bears came through with two straight points to win the set, 27-25, to take a 2-0 lead in the match.

"(When you have) two good teams that get a lot of kills and don't make a lot of errors going back and forth, something's going to give and we unfortunately we gave," Wagner said. "Two aces in a row ended that set. Well played to that point by both teams."

Looking to close out the match, the Bears started the third set by taking a 6-2 lead. The Skylights found their footing a little bit to cut the deficit to 9-7, but the Bears responded with a 7-2 run to extend the lead to 16-9.

Unlike the first two sets, the Skylights were unable to fight their way back. The Bears went on a 7-3 run to stretch their lead to 23-12 before eventually closing out the set for a 25-14 win to win the match 3-0. With the match on the line, Wagner believes certain factors led to the Skylights falling short in that third set.

"I changed the lineup so that's on me. I tried to rotate to get some different matchups for our hitters," Wagner said. "Best I can do is say we did not have the edge we've been playing with."

The Skylights now have four more matches before the Frontier Conference Tournament next month. This loss has now dropped the Skylights to 3-3 in the Frontier Conference and 11-8 overall. While this was a disappointing loss for the Skylights, Wagner expects them to recover to be ready for their next match this week.

"This team will respond," Wagner said. "I trust this group's going to have a bad taste in their mouth and we're going to get together and try to respond against (University of Providence) on Wednesday down there."

The MSU-N volleyball team will play the University of Providence this Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Great Falls.

Rocky Mountain def. MSU-Northern

25-19, 27-25, 25-14

RMC - (kills-aces-blocks) Blythe Sealey 1-1-1.0; Bella Bryan 5-0-0; Kyra Oakland 7-0-4.0; Taylor Wolf 6-0-1.5; Hayley Bretz 0-2-0; Rhiannon Nez 7-0-1.5; Ayla Embry 0-0-0; Kaylee Rammell 0-1-0; Brooke Ark 0-0-0; Makenna Bushman 7-0-2.0; Madeline Gilder 0-1-0. Totals 33-5-10.0.

MSU-N - (kills-aces-blocks) Baily Egan 0-0-0; Alyssa Pretty Weasel 9-0-0; Macee Murphy 7-0-0; Alana Graves 6-1-1.0; Marlee Bender 2-0-1.0; Emily Feller 2-1-0; Hailie George 1-0-0; Kaitlin Murdock 0-0-0; Jessalyn Chvilicek 8-0-1.0. Totals 35-2-3.0.