Box Score

BILLINGS, Mont. – After a slow start the Montana State Billings volleyball team battled back in its home opener falling 3-2 (14-25, 28-30, 25-22, 25-23, 13-15) to visiting Northwest Nazarene in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference opener.  With the loss, the Yellowjackets fell to 0-9 on the year and 0-1 in conference play, while NNU improved to 3-5 on the year and 3-1 in conference play.

“I'm happy with how we showed up tonight,” MSUB head coach Steve Smith said.  “We are looking better, but unfortunately we can't walk away with a win yet.  I was very pleased tonight with Jen Boe as I thought she brought a good game to the court.  There is a lot of promise and it will come.”

The Jackets scored the opening point in the fifth and decisive set, but committed four consecutive errors as the Crusaders jumped out to a 5-1 lead.  Senior Jennifer Boe (Casper, WY, Kelly Walsh HS) scored on a monstrous kill which brought the crowd of 781 to its feet and started a 5-1 rally for the Jackets capped by a Brooke Tolman (Honeyville, UT, Central Wyoming College) ace and a 6-6 score.

After a timeout by the Crusaders, NNU regained the lead and held a two-point advantage at 11-9 on a critical attack error by Tolman which was just her second miscue of the evening.  The Jackets took the lead late as Taylor Adams (Anchorage, AK, Diamond HS) had four consecutive serves, with two errors by NNU, and two key kills for a 13-12 advantage.

The Crusaders evened the set on the eighth miscue by MSUB in the set and the ninth error gave NNU a 14-13 lead.  Carly Dranginis tallied her 13^th kill and Laticia Lehman added the assist for the match winner.

The Jackets were led by a season-high 26 kills from Boe as she hit a team-high .213 for the evening.  Tolman added a career-best 52 assists.  Hannah Johnson (San Diego, CA, La Costa Canyon HS) added 12 kills, while Morgan Moss had 30 digs.  Boe also had 19 digs on the night.

As a team, the Jackets hit .101 with 56 kills and 36 errors. 

NNU was led by 16 kills from Reisa Fesler and 13 from Dranginis.  Briana Claassen had 37 assists, while Haley Hevern led the team with 38 digs.

The Crusaders hit .134 on the night after starting the evening in blazing fashion for a first set victory.  NNU had 56 kills and 31 errors.

NNU opened the match with a dominating performance as it hit .500 with 11 kills and only one error for a 25-14 win.  The second set saw the Yellowjackets play much better and MSUB had the chance to even the match at one with a 26-25 lead, but a service error kept the Crusaders in the set.  The teams traded the next three points and NNU won the set 30-28.

After the intermission, the Jackets came back with their best two hitting performances of the night, .196 in the third set and .184 in the fourth to pull even.  During those two sets, MSUB tallied 29 kills and had 13 errors. 

MSUB struggled in the fifth set as it fell to 0-3 in five-set matches.  The Jackets hit a game-low -.061 with seven kills and a game-high nine errors in the decisive set.