Westminster comes to life to beat Montana Tech

11-12-10

LEWISTON, Idaho - After falling in the first set and trailing 7-1 in the second set, things didn't look that good for the Westminster volleyball team.

As the Griffins proved, however, looks can be deceiving.

With a 12-2 rally in the second set, Westminster took the lead for good and rolled to a 18-25, 25-17, 25-18, 25-18 win over Montana Tech in the opening round of the Frontier Conference Tournament at the Lewis-Clark State College Activity Center on Friday afternoon.

Westminster, the No. 4 seed, improves to 12-12 with the win and will now face top seed Lewis-Clark State in the semifinals at 11 a.m. on Saturday. Montana Tech, the No. 5 seed, finishes its season at 14-14.

Westminster coach Kim Norman said she wasn't surprised by the slow start because of her team's youth.

"This was the first time for them running and the conference tournament and it just took us a while," she said.

The Griffins did a nice job of finding their two big guns, Ericka Evans and Kenzie Mitchell to come to life. Evans finished with 12 kills and a .278 hitting percentage, while Mitchell added 11 kills and a .320 hitting percentage.

"We had a lot of errors early but we finally settled down and played our game," Norman said.

Montana Tech broke open a close first set with a nice run to open up a 20-13 lead. Shersteen Cline and Cassie Hodges had four kills apiece to pace the Orediggers.

Montana Tech then raced out to a 7-1 lead, but Westminster answered with its run for a 13-9 lead and really never trailed again. The Griffins were able to jump ahead early in the third and fourth sets, although Tech was able to cut the margin to three points fairly late in both sets.

For the match, Westminster hit .199 and had 46 kills. Montana Tech had 40 kills and hit .102. Westminster also had 10-6 advantage in blocks. Stephanie Jones led Westminster with 2.5 blocks, while Katie Vance and Evans had two apiece.

Cline and Hodges paced the Orediggers with 11 kills apiece, while Katie Daly had two blocks to go along with 14 digs.

Mitchell finished with five services aces as Westminster had 11 for the match. Kyndall Kordakis had 19 digs.

The two teams split during the regular season with each team winning at home.

The eventual winner of the conference tournament will earn an automatic berth to the NAIA national tournament.