Lady Hawks Are District Champs

The Broadus Lady Hawks went into the 2C District Volleyball Tournament in Glendive last week as the number one seed, having gone undefeated in the regular season.

Their top seed allowed for a bye in the first round, while all other teams in the conference had to play a match. This meant Broadus' first match of the tournament was against Ekalaka on Thursday afternoon. Ekalaka had previously beaten Wibaux that morning, and the Broadus coaching staff knew that facing a team with momentum coming off a win could sometimes be difficult, when your own team had not played a match in days. Alas, that worry was short lived, as Broadus Head Coach Gordon Archer described: "We came out ready to play, and it was halfway through the second set before Ekalaka seemed to react." Broadus handled Ekalaka easily, winning the first set 25-9, the second 25-14, and the third 25-16.

The win put Broadus up against the Circle Lady Wildcats, a team which has proven to be some of the Lady Hawks' toughest conference opponents of the season. This match took place Friday afternoon, and went down as one of the more stressful matches we've watched in a long time.

"Circle didn't want to lose," Archer said of the match. "They came out with a plan to triple block Z [Zeason Schaffer] and beat us at the net."

Circle's plan worked well for them in the first set, as they went ahead early and kept the lead, winning the first set 25-17.

"To our girls' credit, we didn't let the loss of the set get us down, and came back like we have all season," Archer commented.

Indeed the Lady Hawks re-gained their momentum in the second and third sets to go up 2-1, winning the second 25-21 and the third 25-19.

The fourth set began well for Broadus, as they proceeded to go up early to an 11-2 lead over Circle. At that point Broadus seemed to relax, while Circle put the pedal to the floor, roaring back to regain the lead while Broadus struggled, making mistakes while Circle made few. Whenever Broadus seemed to gain a little momentum, the Circle Coach answered with a well placed time-out, which seemed to kill the Lady Hawks momentum. Circle won the match 25-19, forcing a fifth and final match to 15 points in order to see who move on to the championship, and who would go to a more circuitous route to a potential final, facing Jordan in the third place match.

In the fifth set, Broadus and Circle battled back and forth in a very close match, with Broadus finally pulling away slightly in the end to win 15-13 and move on.

Archer spoke of the win: "That last set could've gone either way. We weren't on top of our game and that was the closest we've come to losing so far this season."

The hard-fought win against Circle may prove to be a teaching moment for the Broadus team, building resiliency that they can use as the tournament season progresses and more challenging teams become the norm.

Another bright spot from the match: both Lauryn Billing and Zeason Schaffer broke Broadus school records in the long match, where many volleys went back and forth for long periods of time. Billing broke the record for assists in a single match with 47. The previous record was held by Taylore Drane, with 46, set in 2015 according to Coach Archer.

Zeason Schaffer broke her own record for kills which she had previously set earlier this season against Jordan, with 41. Her previous record was 30, and the record previous to that was held by Sage Collins, with 27. The state record for kills in a single match is 43, by Cheyenne Jones of Valley Christian in 2014. Schaffer's 41 kills ties Rissy Obert of Sweet Grass County's 2002 record for the second amount of match kills in MT history.

The number of team kills in the match, 68, ties for fourth all time, with Billings Senior in a match from the year 2000. Those records were last updated in 2019, so some stats may have been supplanted during recent years.

Circle's loss put them up against Jordan, with the loser placing third in the tournament, and the winner going on to face Broadus to determine first and second.

Circle won their match against Jordan, thus Broadus faced Circle for the second time in one day, on Friday evening at 7 pm.

The Lady Wildcats played closely with Broadus in the first set of the championship, with Broadus eking out a win 26-24. The Lady Hawks slowly pulled away in subsequent sets, winning the second 25-22, which seemed to let the air out of Circle in the third set to win 25-15.

"Mia Mader hit around Circle's blocks during this match and played a good match. Zeason Schaffer had another great match as well," Archer commented on the win.

With the win Broadus kept their undefeated season alive, won the tournament, and perhaps most importantly secured good seeding going into the Eastern Divisional Tournament, taking place this Thursday through Saturday in Culbertson.

Broadus will face Savage in the first round of the tournament on Thursday at noon. Broadus played Savage this summer at a tournament and beat Savage earlier this season in a non-conference match.

"Savage is a scrappy team and isn't a team we can overlook," Archer noted.

Savage goes into the tournament as the fourth seed from their district.

The rather odd tournament location is a result of the need for a new venue this season, as Sidney is hosting the Class A tournaments.

Culbertson is located 34 miles from Sidney, and features 752 residents. The Broadus team is planning to stay in Sidney and make the drive to and fro for the tourney.

Two teams will advance from the tournament to State, next week at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at MSU in Bozeman.

Pics from the tournament are available in the November 3rd photo album.