Spikers gearing up for Bigfork, Whitefish
Hungry Horse News
Two more matches and two more wins for the Columbia Falls volleyball team.
The Wildkats, (4-1), beat Ronan 25-17, 25-14, 23-25 and 25-19 Saturday and blanked Polson 25-21, 25-20 and 25-21 Friday to secure second place in the conference.
Seniors Shanelle Swift and Kate Marcille paced the Kats in the wins, setting the tone for the team's almost effortless play.
Against visiting Polson, Swift had 13 kills and three blocks and Marcille finished with 29 assists as the Kats put together three strong games.
Head coach Josie Brown said that against Polson the girls played with a level of consistency she has been searching for all season.
"I think it was very good this weekend to have two back to back wins," she said. "The girls, against Polson Friday night, pulled together and had fantastic passing."
The Ronan match was just as strong for the Kats, as they finished with 18 aces, with Sarah Marcille, Swift and Sarah Sauter each contributing three.
Columbia Falls had 22 kills, led by Kate Marcille's six, and also tallied 14 blocks, with Swift leading the way with five.
Brown said that the senior leadership was quite important in these matches, as the girls focus on upcoming matches.
"Our game this Thursday against Bigfork is really important," she said. "We need to go out there and get a win."
The junior varsity Kats beat both Polson and Ronan 3-0 to move to 2-3 on the season, and the freshman spikers beat Polson 3-1 and Ronan 3-0 to improve to 3-2 on the year.
The Kats travel to third-place Bigfork today (Thursday) before playing Whitefish at home at 3 p.m. on Saturday in a clash of the top two conference teams.
Runners fall into pack at Missoula Invitational
By JOHN VAN VLEET
Hungry Horse News
The Columbia Falls cross country teams were overmatched at the Mountain West Invitational in Missoula last Saturday, but coaches Steve Gasche and Richard Menicke were encouraged by Columbia Falls' performance against the tougher competition.
The girls team finished 42nd overall, and were led by Nikki Elek, who had the fastest time of any Wildkat this year with a 22:15.14.
Gasche was pleased with the team's effort, citing team-wide improvements as reason for optimism.
"The girls had a phenomenal day with several runners improving the previous best times by over a minute," he said. "Our conditioning is improving and we are on a trajectory that could lead us to even greater improvements in upcoming meets."
All seven of the varsity runners, Elek, Addie Houle, Nellie Lutz, Jessica Dedman, Chelsey Marjerrison, Britney Mickelson and Jennifer Hafferman, ran season best times, and Gasche said the improvements were noticeable.
"The gap between our top five finishers was 54 seconds, which is the first time we have finished five girls in less than a minute," he said. "As a coach, I could not have asked for a better race. If we all continue to stay healthy and improve and run closer as a pack, we could see some exciting results by the end of the season."
The boys, running without top varsity runner Brian Merseal, remained in the middle of the pack, with senior Dalvin Averill finishing a team-best 142nd place in 17:29.
The team's efforts did show promise to Menicke, who lauded his varsity runners.
"Dalvin did a nice job jumping out in the field and working up during the race," he said. "It was a solid effort and his best time ever on the course. Tim McCracken (219th place, 18:18) ran a fantastic race, besting his season best time by 30 seconds."
Other top finishers were Steffen Anderson in 210th place in 18:13 and Michael Taylor in 235th place in 18:38.
Menicke praised the team's finish amongst the heated competition.
"There were over 300 athletes in the varsity race, so our guys finished respectively in the very large pack," he said. "There were teams from Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana and Canada at this very competitive race."
Merseal, who was the top Wildcat runner last week at Ronan, became ill right before the race and was unable to participate.
Gasche said that both teams have been running hard in practice and that he is looking forward to the team's future meets, based on the Wildkats' improvements from week to week.
Both teams run this Saturday in Hamilton.