Skylight volleyball keeps on progressing

After one of the most successful season's in the program's history, the Montana State University-Northern Skylights volleyball team spent a good part of the spring continuing to take the program in the right direction.

In 2012 the Skylights came up just short of a Frontier Conference title. And proving that last season wasn't a fluke, they have also turned in a lot of good wins in preparation for the 2013 season.

Montana State University-Northern's Holly Cartwright digs up a ball during a Frontier Conference volleyball match last October in Havre. The Skylight volleyball team's 2012 success has carried over to a successful spring ball. MSU-N has been to several spring tournaments so far.

The most recent competition came against Montana Tech, Carroll, NCAA Division II MSU-Billings and Division 1 University of Montana. The Skylights swept Tech, 2-0, while splitting with Carroll 1-1. The Skylights also beat MSU-Billings 2-1, but lost 2-1 to UM. The Skylights lost to UM 25-18, 27-29, 10-15.

Head coach Bill Huebsch only took eight girls to compete, including two red-shirt freshmen. And the ability to take sets away from a Division I, as well as beat a Division II opponent is a huge step forward, as Haley Russell, Holly Cartwright, Janelle Hoff, Dayna Jensen, Kelsey Williams, Joni Nagy, Erin Jensen and Abby Nicholas continue to play very well this spring.

MSUN also competed at the Lethbridge College Tournament in March and the Gonzaga University Tournament earlier this month.

At Lethbridge, the Skylights defeated Medicine Hat College 2-0 and Lethbridge College 2-0. The University of Montana and the University of Calgary also defeated the Skylights 2-0.

At the Gonzaga tournament, the Skylights played extremely well. They split with the Bulldogs 27-25, 21-25, as well as with Carroll 1 25-21, 21-25, and North Idaho College 25-19, 23-25. And continuing to roll through the competition, the Skylights defeated Tech 2-0, 25-16, 25-20 and Carroll 2 2-0, with scores of 25-23 and 26-16 to finish the tourney 7-3.

"(The) team was pretty excited to get that win over the Zags," Huebsch said. "And really we should have swept them, (but we) made a couple of mistakes late and let them back in the game."

Spring ball isn't over the Skylights just yet, as they have one more weekend to compete. This weekend the Skylights will be in Helena, as Carroll will host the final tournament until next season for the Skylights.