Plains clinches third seed in divisional tourney

It’s been a whirlwind finish and a successful season for the Plains Trotters volleyball team.

After winning two of three matches at the Western B7 district tournament this past weekend, Plains secured a spot in the Western Division finals this coming weekend in Anaconda. 

Plains clinched the third seed in the divisional round with a 3-0 sweep of Mission Saturday in district tournament play at Thompson Falls.  Earlier, in the semifinal round, the Trotters dropped a 3-0 match to the host Lady Hawks (see story), who went on to hand top-seed Eureka their only loss of the season in the finals. 

The Trotters opened district action with a 3-0 sweep of Troy in a play-in game earlier in the week in Plains. 

Against Troy, Plains took an early, first-set lead and ran away with a 25-7 set victory, giving them a 1-0 match lead.   

But the Lady Trojans showed they were not giving up when they overcame an early set two deficit and tied the set at 15-15.  The match was tied six more times, including 24-24, before the Trotters scored two points to eke out a 26-24 set victory that stretched their match lead to 2-0. 

The third set was another hard-fought affair, with Plains breaking away from an 11-11 tie and building a five to six points lead the rest of the set on their way to a 25-20 win that clinched the 3-0 home sweep and sent them to the district tourney in Thompson Falls. 

In the first round of the 7B District event, Plains ran into T Falls, the two-seed with whom they split their two regular season matches. 

After falling to T Falls 3-0, the Trotters wound up in the match for third and fourth places, along with corresponding seeding in the divisional round, with Mission. 

The Lady Bulldogs were coming off a loss to pre-district and regular season champion Eureka following a tough play-in victory over Superior. 

After an already long day of volleyball, both teams were looking to get back on track and restore momentum heading into the Anaconda tourney. 

Plains fought off the determined Mission crew in the first set and hung on for a 25-20 win that was a precursor of set number two.  The Trotters and Bulldogs engaged in a scrappy, hard-fought, back-and-forth battle before Plains scored the last three points of the set for a 25-22 win and a 2-0 match advantage. 

With both teams having left a lot of energy and effort on the court, Plains proved to be the better team as they completed a 3-0 sweep with a 25-14 set three win. 

Plains, 10-4 this year, now moves on to Anaconda where they will face Missoula Loyola, 7-3 on the year, at 3:15 pm this Thursday (Nov 7).  Mission opens the tournament at 10 am Thursday with a match against top seed Florence-Carlton, 21-4 on the year. 

    Plains players Teagan Sander (left) and Aubree Butcher go high to block a shot from a Troy player during the two teams' district play-in match last week in Plains.  (Photo by Tracy Scott)