George Ferguson Havre Daily News sports editor gferguson@havredailynews.com
The 2008 high school volleyball season has officially reached the halfway point. And for area teams on the Hi-Line, that means that conference races are heating up as the weather starts to turn colder. On Thursday night, the Harlem Wildcats suffered their first of three critical losses on the weekend. In Malta on Thursday, the M-Ettes thumped the Wildcats by scores of 25-5, 25-12 and 25-2. Mickey Kulbeck had five digs and two blocks in the loss for the Wildcats, while Jasmin Dumas added five digs and two blocks as well. Shelby McCann paced Harlem's offense with three kills. Friday night saw a pair of District 6C East teams in action. In Gildford, the North Star Knights cruised to a three-game victory over Dutton-Brady in a nonconference match. The Knights beat Dutton-Brady by scores of 25-16, 25-20 and 25-13. North Star, which was never threatened in the match, got nine kills from Britnee Dyrland, while Britt Kapperud added eight aces and seven digs. Meanwhile, things were not so good for the Big Sandy Pioneers on Friday night as they fell to Northern C rival Belt in five games in Big Sandy. After dropping the first game 25-7, the visiting Huskies rebounded to beat the Pioneers by scores of 25-22, 25-23, 18-25 and 15-5. Amber Amsbaugh paced the Pioneers in the loss with 11 kills and a pair of blocks. Setter Josi Herron helped the Big Sandy offense with 34 of the Pioneers' 37 assists. Unlike Friday night, Saturday was not so kind to the Knights, who fell on their home floor to the Havre High junior varsity team. The Blue Ponies beat the Knights in a five-game thriller by scores of 25-22, 13-25, 25-13, 23-25 and 15-6. Kapperud had another big match for the Knights, racking up 16 digs and three aces. Shelbi Beaudry added seven assists and three blocks. The Blue Ponies got a match-high 10 kills from Cali Freier, while Paighton Gilman had four service aces. In nonconference act ion on Saturday, the Chester/J-I Hawks played host to the Chester/J- I Showcase and things didn' t go smoothly for the Hawks or any of the other Hi-Line teams in attendance. C/J-I finished fourth in its pool, while Big Sandy finished third. In the other pool, the Chinook Sugarbeeters finished a disappointing fifth, and none of the three Hi-Line teams reached the semifinals. Northern C favorite Highwood went on to beat Simms for the championship in the C/J-I tourney. In Class B action on Saturday, Harlem was back on the court, this time in Poplar for a doubleheader. Harlem dropped the first match by scores of 25-12, 25-10 and 25-15 and got eight digs and four aces from Shay Martin. In the second match, Poplar again beat the Wildcats, this time by scores of 25-8, 25-8 and 25-22.
