M-ettes fight back hard and fall against Plentywood

The M-ettes volleyball lost a heartbreaker last Saturday against the Plentywood Lady Wildcats in five sets. The loss comes after the M-ettes defeated Glasgow last Thursday in three games.

It was a game that started so rough for the M-ettes, that their were murmurs of the team losing the game in three sets.

Plentywood looked dominant the first two sets of the game, through the scores would indicate otherwise.

Malta couldn't establish a stable defense in those sets.

In set three, a game that would've ended in a bitter defeat Malta stepped up and looked like their regular selves after M-ette Head Coach Julia Tatafu challenged the team to improve.

"I just told them, guys we gotta dig deep," she said. "This is our home court and we are not going to be done after three. Go out there and start being aggressive, be loud and serve hard."

She went on to address her nine seniors saying they needed to step up and that now is the time to lead.

"That's the cool thing about volleyball, you get a chance to start over every single set,"Coach Tatafu said.

It worked because the team came out on fire, attacking the net and playing sound defense.

Markelle Lett led the offensive charge, with 12 kills in the game. The team had 43 kills total.

Lett also led the team in assists with 20 out of 39 team attempts.

The team had six aces. Darby Schye and Kelsey Kuehn had two a piece.

Kourtney Simonson had 14 digs out of 68 team digs.

A key stat was the blocking, in which the team had 13 and were led by Kuehn and Larimie Scheffelmear, who had three a piece.

An unknown stat and the most important may have been kill deflections, which ultimately gave Malta a chance to set up a solid attack.

"I tell them that's really important and that our first line of defense is blocking," said Coach Tatafu. "It's important that you don't leave your back-court girls hanging."

She went on to say that the key to beating Plentywood was getting big blocks.

"You cool them off by blocking them and get that momentum back," said Coach Tatafu.

It was a plan that won Malta two games and even gave the team a five point lead in the fifth set. Ultimately, a visually tired Plentywood gained momentum and overtook Malta, never to give up another lead.

"We got nervous and sat back on our heels instead of continuing to play aggressive, like we were," Coach Tatafu said. "We started to buckle a little bit."

Though the team ultimately lost the game Coach Tatafu made sure to tell the PCN that she was extremely proud of her team and how they fought back.

"Our first two games we started out extremely rough but they came out there and they fought hard," said Coach Tatafu. "I was proud, they played hard."

The team will focus on receiving serves during practices, due to the fact they missed eight serves and dropped four balls in the loss.

The Junior Varsity and C-