M-ettes Head to Divisional Tourney

The Malta M-ettes will head into this weekend's Northern B Divisional as District 2B runner-up after falling to the Glasgow Lady Scotties 3-1 last Saturday, October 29, in Poplar.

The M-ettes hope to take one of only two spots heading to the State B Volleyball Tournament in Bozeman on Thursday, November 10. The M-ettes made it to Bozeman last year for the first time in 20 years.

The M-ettes will face the Shelby Coyotes, a familiar foe, in the opening round of the Northern B on Thursday, November 3, at 3:15 p.m. in Choteau.

This year, the M-ettes have won both games against Shelby, defeating them 3-1 in the season opener on September 2, and then 3-2 later that month.

Depending on the outcome, Malta will then face either Choteau who won the 1B Championship or Poplar, who enters the Northern B as the fourth seed from 2B.

As the M-ettes prepare this week for the Northern B, first time Head Coach Mary Grace Kalal knows that the team cannot make the same mistakes that they did this past weekend.

"Practice this week is going to be focused on fine tuning the little details," Coach Kalal said. "Being this deep in the season that's where you want to be. It's too late to really change anything drastically, so we're going to really key in on those fundamentals that we struggled with this last weekend."

Coach Kalal shared what it would mean for the team to make it to state this season.

"Making it to State this year would mean a lot to me as a first year coach," Coach Kalal said. "It would be an awesome experience not only for myself, but also for these girls. They're hardworking and determined. We just have to make sure we're walking into games confident, not arrogant."

Malta lost their opening game in the 2B tournament to the Wolf Point Wolves 3-1 on the morning of Friday, October 28. The scores were 30-32, 25-21, 19-25, and 17-25.

"Looking at some of the stats that we had during that game, we had the worst Serve Receive percentage we've had all season by a long shot," Coach Kalal said. "I don't want to discredit Wolf Points servers by any means, but we can pass a much better ball than we did and we've shown that we are able to handle their serves twice before this."

She also said that part of the issue is that many of the M-ettes were struggling that day.

The M-ettes were able to bounce back and win three straight games on the way to their championship match with Glasgow.

They defeated the Harlem Wildcats 3-0 at 3 p.m. on Friday. The scores were 25-13, 25-15, and 25-19. They then defeated Poplar in the 6 p.m. game later that day. The scores were 25-8, 25-10, and 25-20.

"I think the girls realized that it was game time," Coach Kalal said. "Things were actually serious if we lost those games. Saturday morning we did a walk through before getting on the bus to go over what we should be doing against Wolf Point, what their weak spots were, and where we struggled the day before. I think this helped the girls get a better understanding and a good refresher before the game. They applied the things we worked on Saturday morning in that game Saturday night."

The M-ettes were able to get revenge on the Lady Wolves on Saturday evening at 5 p.m., as they defeated Wolf Point 3-1. The scores were 25-14, 25-13, 15-25, and 28-26.

Malta would not be able to avenge their loss to Glasgow a few weeks ago, as they lost 3-1 to the Lady Scotties in the 2B District Championship Game. The scores were 17-25, 25-22, 18-25, and 17-25.

"I know that the girls would've preferred not to lose that game, but they had three tough games Friday and a tough game against Wolf Point 30 minutes before the championship game," Coach Kalal said. "The girls really put everything they had into that Wolf Point game and we gave what steam we had left in the Championship game."

Though they lost the game, Coach Kalal believes that the team learned a lesson.

"I think it's important for the girls to know that we took the 'Scenic Route' back to that championship game and we played more games than everyone else due to that, but noting that, it's huge that they didn't give up and they made it back to that final game," Coach Kalal said.