BILLINGS, Mont. – With the first Great Northwest Athletic Conference win under its collective belt, the Montana State University Billings volleyball team will trek to Alaska for two games against Alaska Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks on Sept. 23 and Sept. 25, respectively.
 
For the Yellowjackets, this road trip not only includes two opponents who received votes in the latest AVCA Division II Coaches' Poll, but also an opponent in Alaska (9-5, 2-0 GNAC), which has gone to five sets with MSUB in five of the past six meetings. The recent history between the two teams coupled with the raucous road atmosphere has made this Alaska trip one the team anticipates.
 
"Our girls get really excited about playing Fairbanks because they know it's going to be a good match and people are going to play super hard on both sides," MSUB head coach Casey Williams said. "They get super into it."
 
"They get really good crowds and community support, which is really fun to play in front of," Williams added of the road trip. "I think our girls really appreciate that. It's a lot different than a lot of the gyms we play at in the GNAC."
 
To get to Fairbanks, however, the Yellowjackets will have to go through Thursday's match against Alaska Anchorage first. The Seawolves started the season ranked in the AVCA's top 25, but still sits at a respectable 9-5, including a 2-0 record in GNAC play. So far, the Seawolves have been led by GNAC Preseason Player of the Year Eve Stephens, who leads the nation with 191 kills, plus ranks in the GNAC's top-10 in kills, service aces and total points.
 
"We've played against Eve Stephens for the past four years or so and she's a really good player – and that's really the only way to put it," Williams said. "She's dynamic, she jumps well and she blocks well. To have that dynamic of a player on the opposite is obviously huge. They have a really dynamic setter who gets her players the ball really well, but I think we do the same thing on our side of the net, so I'm excited to play them."
 
MSUB will look for its first win in Anchorage since beating the Seawolves 3-1 on Nov. 16, 2017. The Yellowjackets' last win against the Nanooks also came in 2017, albeit at home in Billings.
 
ABOUT LAST WEEKEND: MSUB split its opening week of GNAC play with a 3-1 (25-23, 15-25, 18-25, 23-25) loss to Central Washington on Sept. 16, then with a 3-0 (25-20, 25-16, 25-23) sweep over Northwest Nazarene on Sept. 18.
 
Along the way, senior Bayli Monck became the ninth player in MSUB program history to reach the 1,000-kill mark, which she did midway through MSUB's first-set win over Central Washington.
 
"It's been a goal of mine to get 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs, ever since I was in high school," Monck told Scott Breen of MontanaSports.com earlier this week. "I had a million messages on my phone from family and friends congratulating me, and then one of my teammates came up to me and said congrats. I honestly didn't know how to feel; I had no idea I was even that close."
 
"The kill that she got was actually a very hard-driven ball," Williams told Breen. "She came around and smacked it down the ten-foot line."
 
From there, Monck went on to finish with an 11-kill, 13 dig double-double – her third on the season. Skylar Reed wound up leading the Yellowjackets with 13 kills, which tied the match high.
 
Then in the next game, second-year freshman Jahsita Fa'ali'i had the best game of her career against Northwest Nazarene, setting new career-highs in kills (12), service aces (4) and blocks (2). Saturday was one of several instances this season so far in which a new heroine has stepped up on offense to compliment the Yellowjackets' experienced trio of Monck, Reed and senior middle blocker Joelle Mahowald.
 
Williams was complimentary of Fa'ali'i's outing last week, and also adds that the depth of this year's roster has made every practice and every game an opportunity for someone new to break out.
 
"Jahsita played well on Saturday," Williams said. "This is the team that's had the most depth of any team I've coached, which is great especially in the practice gym. It definitely makes things competitive."
 
Playing in a new-look 6-2 rotation last week, the Yellowjackets hope to get more hitters involved on offense, which will not only cater to the team's depth, but also keep defenses guessing.
 
"We had a good look with our 6-2 offense that we ran on Saturday by getting Hailey Carroll and Mikayla Yore in there as well," Williams said. "The main thing is continuing to give ourselves options. We want to make it more difficult on opposing defenses on the block on the other side, so incorporating the 6-2 was something we thought would look good on paper. After implementing that on Saturday, we thought it looked really good on the court as well."
 
STAT CORNER

• Bayli Monck is on pace to reach the 1,000 digs plateau this season as well; she currently has 851.
• Joelle Mahowald ranks fourth in the GNAC and 28th in Division II with 1.19 blocks per set.
• Freshman libero Christine Funk ranks sixth in the GNAC with 4.33 digs per set; she has 152 total on the season, which leads the Yellowjackets.
• Hannah Hashbarger, who passed Krissy Janney to have the seventh-most assists in MSUB program history last week, ranks fifth in the GNAC with 7.41 assists per set. Hashbarger leads the team with 254 assists this season and has amassed 1,506 in her career.

 
UP NEXT: The Yellowjackets play at Alaska Anchorage on Thursday at 9 p.m. MT (7 p.m. local), then they'll travel to Alaska Fairbanks on Saturday at 4 p.m. MT (2 p.m. local). Links to live streams and stats can be found on the volleyball schedule page at msubsports.com.