Lady Hawks finish out season at District Tourney

After finishing their regular season third in the conference, the Lady Hawk volleyball team traveled to Glendive for the District Tournament. The tournament, held last Thursday and Friday at Dawson Community College, was the first taste of tournament play for many of the Lady Hawks. Coach Gordon Archer figured that only three players on this year's roster had previous tournament experience, which meant the young team could be in for some first tournament jitters.

When it came time to play in their first match against Terry, the team did not show that the pressure bothered them, as the Lady Hawks quickly pulled ahead on points, and stayed ahead throughout the three-game match. The entire Lady hawk roster, 8th graders included, had playing time against Terry, with all the Lady Hawks contributing stats to the win. Kylee Drane went 13-14 on serves, with 25 assists, while Kiarah Coulter contributed 19 kills. Karli Collins went 12-14 on serves, while 8th grader Abi Krantz went 11-12 on serves. Broadus soundly beat the Lady Terriers, 25-13, 25-10, and 25-18.

Later Thursday afternoon, Broadus faced off against our "friendly rivals", as Coach Archer referred to Ekalaka. The Lady Hawks had been beaten by Ekalaka in both conference games this season, so Coach Archer tried a different line-up this time around, to have some different matchups at the net. Unfortunately for Broadus, the Ekalaka team was playing quite well. "I wouldn't say that we played poorly; they just played really well," Archer said of the match. Broadus lost in three games, 25-12, 25-19, and 25-14.

Major contributors to the Lady Hawk effort included Karli Collins, who went 12-14 on serves with one ace, and 10-12 on serve/receive against Ekalaka. 8th grader Lauryn Billing with 8-10 on serves with 2 aces, while Kiarah Coulter made 11 kills and 16 digs.

With the loss to Ekalaka, Broadus was now in a predicament in which one more loss would keep them from moving on to Divisionals. Broadus would have to win two more matches in order to move into a position to move on. Ekalaka would go on to win the tournament.

On Friday morning, Broadus faced Jordan, and in the must win match, the Lady Hawks performed well. "Everybody did what they needed to do, and handled the situation well," Archer commented.

Jadyn Traub led the Lady Hawks in serving against Jordan, going 19-20 with five aces. Meanwhile Kiarah Coulter went 19-21 in serve/receives, also putting down 17 kills. Kylee Drane went 12-12 on serves with 2 aces, and contributed 23 assists and 12 digs.

Though all three games were fairly tight in score, Broadus won 25-21, 25-19, and 25-23, to move on in the tournament. "The last game could've gone either way, but we made some great plays to get the win," Gordon added.

With one more win behind them, the Lady Hawks advanced to meet Circle on Friday afternoon, a team which Broadus had beat twice in regular season play. The match went five games, and consisted of back and forth play which put the Lady Hawks up 25-20 in the first game, with Circle responding to win 25-17 in the second. In the third game, Broadus came back to win 25-20, while in the fourth game, Broadus pulled ahead 5-0, only to have the rug pulled out from under them, and fall behind to lose the game 25-12. At that point, Circle seemed to gain momentum, and won the fifth game, which only goes to 15 points, 15-7.

With that loss, the Lady Hawk season came to a close. "Circle made the key plays when they needed them," Archer reported. "I wanted the win for our seniors and for all the girls, but it wasn't meant to be."

Coach Archer went on to congratulate his seniors: "We're really going to miss Kylee, Kiarah, and Hannah. They contributed a lot over the last four years, and they'll be hard to replace."

Broadus was able to get some younger players a lot of playing time this season, which potentially bodes well for the future. "I have confidence that we will be competitive next season," Archer went on. "I'd like to give a big thanks to Melissa. She not only coaches the Junior High team, building up our future players' fundamentals; she helps immensely at the high school level as the assistant coach. I'd also like to thank my wife, Deb. She comes to every match and keeps the books, and I don't know what I'd do without her. When it comes to the team, I have nothing but praise for this group of young ladies. We went through a lot of trials this season, and came up one game short. We'll be back next season."