North Country Defeats Brockton, Pick up Wins at Choteau Tourney

The North Country Mavericks Volleyball team saw plenty of success last week as they defeated the Brockton Warriors in three sets in Brockton on Thursday, September 28, and posted two wins, one loss and one tie at the Choteau Invitational on Saturday, September 30.

In the Mavericks’ win over Brockton, the scores were 25-1, 25-16, and 25-13.

“Our match with Brockton was fast,” Mavericks’ Head Coach Charlene Wasson said. “The first set took 10 minutes to play and we never moved from our first rotation. In set two, we started in rotation four so we could get a little movement and I subbed Emerson in for Paige to get her some varsity action as a setter and server.”

Teagan Erickson had eight of 24 team kills and two digs. Paige Wasson had 12 of 28 team aces, five kills, and five assists. Kennedy Simonson had eight of the team’s 20 assists. Berkley Hillman had three digs. Kodi McColly and Gracie Wasson had two digs.

Emerson Downing had five aces and Lyli Bear had four.

In the third set, our JV came away with a solid win to close out the match,” Coach Wasson said. “We didn’t have a lot of stats this game other than serving and a few attacks. We just wanted to make sure we were doing a good job of placing the ball on serves and getting them to return the ball to us.”

Coach Wasson said that the Choteau Midseason tournament was a blast for her team.

“The opponents were great and the speed of the game was quick and strategic,” Coach Wasson said.

North Country started off the tournament with a loss to Jefferson. The scores were 8-21 and 14-21.

“Jefferson was a very strategic offensive team with great outside hitters,” Coach Wasson said. “They seemed very seasoned and took advantage of keeping us on our toes in the back row trying to defend their different attacks.”

The team bounced back with a win over Malta. The scores were 21-9 and 21-16.

“We played Malta the same as a couple of weeks ago,” Coach Wasson said. “We know they have good servers who place the ball and we made sure we didn’t let one of them get rolling.”

They split the next sets with Choteau. The scores were 21-15 and 20-21.

“Choteau was a scrappy team. We had to put the ball down hard to get our points,” Coach Wasson said. “We served a little down in the second set when we lost to them so we need to make sure and fix that.”

Lastly, North Country beat Belt with the scores being 21-16 and 21-15.

“Belt was a good match to see where we both are from last year at State,” Coach Wasson said. “I know going forward we have to swing hard and read defense faster in order to keep our momentum going forward.”

The Mavericks were really close to being able to continue playing in the tournament, but splitting the sets with Choteau was ultimately the difference.

“All-in-all, we missed playing in the power play match by one point and it would have been nice to get another go at Jefferson but we walked away from that tournament with a lot of knowledge in our pockets,” Coach Wasson said. “I was able to use Ireland Mears as libero this last weekend because she has been doing such a great job on the JV squad. I thought it was a great experience that we will need to use down the stretch leading into tournaments. We know the things we need to clean up in the next three weeks for tournaments to start and that is exactly what we plan on doing.”

Total stats for the whole tourney:

Team Aces: 16. Paige Wasson 6, Kendall Scheffelmear 5, Kennedy Simonson and Berkley Hillman each with 3.

Team Kills: 78. Teagan Erickson 37, P. Wasson 22, K. Scheffelmear 11, and BaiLee McColly 6.

Team Assists: 68. Kennedy Simonson 45, P. Wasson 16, and CharLee McColly 6.

Team Digs: 82. P. Wasson and K. Scheffelmear each with 14, B. Hillman 14, Ireland Mears 11, and K. Simonson 10.

Team Blocks: 12.