M-ettes drop games to district foes

The Malta M-ettes lost a pair of games this past week, one to Wolf Point on Saturday in Malta and the other last Thursday to the Lady Scotties in Glasgow. The team will look to rebound as they travel to the Dickinson Invitational in North Dakota on Friday.

The team fought hard in their loss to Glasgow but fell in three sets. The scores were 25-23, 25-16 and 25-21.

“We had eighteen blocks in that game, so that was really fun for the girls,” Coach Tasha Hines said. “Our defense was just a little bit slow but we were pretty on at the net.”

Malta was led by Ella Schye who had five of 10 team kills and six of 18 team blocks. Sam Mitchell had five of seven team assists. Raina Mortenson had 10 of 56 digs and Shay Garfield had four of nine aces.

Coach Hines also attributes many of the points to attack errors.

“We were swinging,” Coach Hines said. “But we had a few errors. They really did leave it all on the court.”

The team had another great effort as Wolf Point played spoiler in the team’s Homecoming game. Malta lost 3-1, with the scores being 25-20, 21-25, 27-25 and 25-16.

The team was led by Schye who had 13 of 33 team kills. Schye also had three of five blocks. Mitchell had 20 of the team’s 82 digs and 13 of 26 assists. Mitchell and Garfield both had two aces a piece. The team had seven aces.

“This was a fun night,” Coach Hines said.

The game was going great for Malta until there was a hit that the team felt was an illegal hit, late in the third set.

“It looked to me like there was a block on Sam’s serve,” Coach Hines said. “They called it like it was an overhead pass and that evened the score up. They ended up turning around, taking the lead back and taking that set. After that, it was really hard for the girls. They couldn’t really find that drive again.”

Coach Hines, went on to say that it slowed the team’s momentum down.

“That’s just part of the game,” Coach Hines said. “It was a hard call and it’s hard sometimes to come back from those calls but it’s something we will continue to work on and kind of expect to play through it no matter what.”

There were a couple of things that the team did right in the loss.

“We had 128 attack attempts,” Coach Hines said. “They were just pretty scrappy. We were swinging on ‘em, we were blocking. It really was a good game.”

She went on to say that the team could’ve moved quicker on defense. Part of the team’s downfall was the celebrating after a big hit, while Wolf Point fielded kill attempts.

“We were scrambling back to get centered and I think the girls learned from that,” Coach Hines said. “Keep playing until you hear the whistle and we always say that but you don’t always remember that because you get so excited.”

The team will have their first game in the Dickinson Invitational at 3:15 p.m. on Friday against Oak Grove. They will then face Beach at 5:35 p.m. and then the team will take on Century at 7 p.m.

The teams mentioned are all from North Dakota, so the team has no info about their opponents, which may benefit them later in the season.

“You just don’t know what to expect and that’s exciting,” Coach Hines said.