Season ends for M-ettes at State B Tournament

The Malta M-ettes Volleyball Season ended at the 2021 State B Volleyball Tournament on Saturday, November 12.

Their appearance at the state tournament was their first since 2002.

"We couldn't be more proud of our M-ette volleyball team and all they accomplished this season," Malta Head Coach Tasha Hines told the PCN after the tournament. "The way they battled, fought back and put us in the position to get the wins. This was just the beginning of an extremely bright future for our program. It's always a great day to be a M-ette with these ladies!"

The team was unable to bring home hardware, but the team went down swinging in the elimination bracket, taking out their 2B Rival, the Glasgow Scotties 3-2, after falling behind 0-2 in the game on Saturday, at noon.

Later that day, Malta would later fall to the Choteau Bulldogs, who took fourth in the tournament.

Malta's first loss came to the Huntley Project Red Devils in the opening round of the tournament. The Red Devils would go on to win their fourth state title in five years.

In Malta's victory over Glasgow, the scores were 23-25, 21-25, 25-17, 25-17, 16-14.

"We kept up the momentum," M-ette senior Captain Skylie Lefdahl said. "We kept doing our fast sets, we weren't being slow, we were being scrappy in the back row and everything was perfect."

Prior to the M-ettes win over Glasgow, the Scotties had defeated Malta in each of the five times that the teams had met.

"It feels great," Malta senior Captain Kaylee Bishop said. "I would take all of the losses this year for this win. I am good with taking this one."

Malta junior Allie Kunze led the M-ettes in kills with 11 of 40 team kills. Senior Skylie Lefdahl had 10 in the win.

In the post-season, the M-ette front row has been very decisive in where they wanted to hit the ball. This was apparent in their win over the Scotties.

"It's very exciting because during our practices we have been working on being faster in the front row," Kunze said. "I think we are finally getting it. It's pretty exciting to be able to read the floor and place the ball where we want it."

Junior Rylee Hines had 21 of Malta's 37 assists.

Malta was led in blocks by senior Justine Lamb who had seven of 19. Kunze had six. Kunze also led in digs with 26. Libero Kennedy Koss had 20 digs and Tuss had 18. In all, Malta had 137 digs.

Glasgow was led by Abrianna Nielson, who posted 23 of Glasgow's 50 kills. Klaire Krumweide had 10 of 24 blocks.

In Malta's loss to Choteau, the scores were 17-25, 19-25, and 26-28.

The team was led by Lefdahl, who had 11 kills. Kunze was second with seven kills. Malta had a total of 35 kills. Hines had 19 of Malta's 34 assists and Malta's lone ace. Addy Anderson and Justine Lamb each had two blocks. Siewing had 15 of Malta's 72 digs. Hines had 12 digs, and Kunze had 11 digs.

Malta earned the first point in their match against Huntley Project in the opening round on Thursday, November 11, at 2 p.m.

The point came off of a kill by Lefdahl, but Huntley would go on to score the next 13 points. The scores in the match was 7-25, 8-25, and 14-25.

Bishop described what it was like facing Huntley in the opening round.

"It was so scary," Bishop said with a laugh. "We have never been here and none of us have even watched state volleyball before, so to walk in and see all of the chaos was overwhelming. It's obvious to try to keep your confidence up but to face a team that has been here every year is a little scary. It was a good experience."

Bishop also said that she wishes that they would have faced Huntley later instead of in the first round.

Lefdahl would post a team-leading four kills for Malta. The M-ettes had 12 in total. Lefdahl also had two of three team blocks. Hines had eight of 11 assists. Koss had 10 of 45 digs and Malta's only ace.