Kats take third at Western A, advance to state

The Columbia Falls volleyball team took third at the Western A Divisional tournament in Hamilton Saturday — not exactly the finish they were hoping for, but it still gets them to the state tournament in Bozeman this week.

The Wildkats, (16-3) beat Whitefish to take third in a sweep, 25-19, 25-19, 26-24.

Morgan Stenger was big in the win, with 20 kills.

Whitefish also qualified for state with fourth. Butte Central beat the Kats earlier in the day, which put the Kats in the consolation bracket.

Corvallis, a team the Kats had beaten a couple of times already this season won the tournament, beating Central for the crown.

“We are excited to be making another trip to Bozeman this week and although we didn’t end up exactly where we wanted to at divisionals, the bigger goal was to extend our season another week. It was good practice for us to get used to playing together without Keavyn Baker,” said coach Jessy Matthews.

Baker suffered a season-ending knee injury in the last match against Whitefish in the regular season.

The girls also suffered a loss to Corvallis on Friday and were suffering themselves — from the flu.

“We had a couple girls not at 100 percent due to illness, which also didn’t help, but we fought hard against Corvallis and Butte Central and unfortunately some of those points just didn’t fall our way this time,” Matthews said.

It was nice, however, to get the win over the Bulldogs.

“It felt great to get Whitefish in three, though and am excited that the four best teams from the west will be representing at state,” Matthews said.

The girls open the state tournament against Billings Central on Thursday. Last year the Kats took second.

“We are feeling really confident going into Thursday and with all the teams there taking matches off each other all season I think whichever team shows up with all their players on the same page is the team that’s going to take it and our goal is for that team to be us,” Matthews said.