Rocky Mountain volleyball solid at home tourney

The Rocky Mountain Lady Grizz volleyball team put on a solid showing as they hosted the North Big Horn Basin tournament in Cowley over the weekend.

In the best two-out-of-three-set format on Saturday and only playing two sets in each match in pool play on Friday, the Lady Grizz won seven out of their 11 sets overall.

They opened with Meeteetse and won both sets, 25-11, 25-6.

“It was a good warmup to get into the weekend,” head coach Stephanie Ames said.

After Meeteetse, Rocky Mountain was paired up against Dubois and again won both sets, 25-22, 25-17.

“Dubois played well, and we were able to get our hitters going,” Ames said, noting Lauren Bassett had 8 kills in the game. 

In the final game on Friday evening, the Lady Grizz split with Sundance, 18-25 and 25-20.

“Sundance is extremely competitive, and we had a well-rounded game against them,” Ames said. “This is the kind of competition we are looking for to raise the bar for us.”

On Saturday morning, Rocky Mountain dropped two sets to the Tongue River squad, 25-22, 25-21.

“We played well, and we always meet them (Tongue River) several times a season. They are definitely some of our toughest competition,” Ames said.

“They have consistently been in the top five programs in the State the last few years in 2A, and while we did lose the points in this one, we felt good about it, and we were happy to get an idea of what they are looking like this year.”

In the final match, the Lady Grizz beat Greybull, but it took a deciding third set, 18-25, 25-16, 15-11.

“It’s always great to play Greybull. They have definitely been our biggest conference competition for several years,” Ames said. “We started a bit slower than we’d like but got things moving pretty quick.

“We were really rolling on the net, and Brittly Boettcher shot the lights out with 14 kills in the match.”

WEEKEND STATS

The Lady Grizz performed well at the net with kills, led by Boettcher with 30 and Bassett with 23. Tarynn Schoening added nine while Shelby Wambeke had 11, Elliahna Scheeler had one and Keylee Christiansen had eight.

For blocks, Bassett led with five solo and seven assisted, Boettcher three solo and two assisted, Scheeler three solo and six assisted and Schoening two solo and eight assisted.

Wambeke also assisted on two blocks along with Christiansen with seven.

From the service line, Bassett tallied 10 aces to lead Rocky Mountain while both Boettcher and Christiansen had four apiece and Schoening, Wambeke and Scheeler all had one.

Defensively, the Lady Grizz dug the ball well with Bassett also adding 31 digs in the matches overall.

Boettcher had 21 digs, Scheeler 17, Wambeke 15, Schoening nine, Christiansen eight and Layla Gardner 13.

“Overall, we had a great weekend, and it is nice to have our first games under our belt,” Ames said. “The girls played well, and we were able to play with some new stuff we’ve been working on in practice including more back row attacks and some switching up hitting positions.”

Up next, the Lady Grizz travel to Pavillion and Ethete for the Wind River-Wyoming Indian Invitational Tournament Friday and Saturday.