by Scott Sacry
Divisional volleyball starts this weekend in Montana, and there are three Bitterroot Valley schools that qualified.
Hamilton and Corvallis will compete in the Western A Divisional tournament in Polson on Nov. 2nd-4th, and Florence will compete in the Western B Divisionals in Eureka on Nov. 1st-3rd.
Florence won the District 6B tournament and will play Plains in the first round of Divisionals on Wednesday, Nov. 1st at 1:30 p.m.
!!UPDATE as of Thursday, Nov. 2nd, 12:05 pm.!!
Florence defeated Plains 3-0 (25-15, 25-7, 25-17) in the First Round on Wednesday, Nov. 1st.
In the second round, Florence defeated Loyola 3-0 (25-16, 25-19, 25-22).
They play Lincoln Co. (Eureka) on Thursday, Nov. 2nd at 5 pm with a chance to go to the Divisional Championship game.
!!UPDATE as of Friday, Nov. 2nd at 10 am!!
Florence defeated Eureka 3-1 (20-25, 25-17, 25-17, 26-24). They will face the winner of the Deer Lodge/Eureka game in the finals on Friday, Nov. 3rd at 5 pm.
Hamilton earned the #1 seed from the Southwest and will play the #4 seed out of the Northwest, Columbia Falls, on Thursday, Nov. 2nd at 12 p.m.
Corvallis is the Southwest’s #4 seed and will face the #1 seed from the Northwest, Whitefish, on Thursday, Nov. 2nd at 2 p.m.
!!UPDATE as of Friday, Nov. 2nd at 10 am!!
Hamilton defeated Columbia Falls in their first game 3-1 on Thursday, Nov. 2nd. Then later in the day they played Frenchtown and lost 0-3. They play the winner of the Corvallis/Bigfork game on Friday, Nov. 3rd in the afternoon.
Corvallis lost to Whitefish 1-3 on Thursday, Nov 2nd and is playing Bigfork in the loser out bracket on Friday, Nov. 3rd at 4pm.
Divisional Play in games
In the Southwestern A, the top three teams (Hamilton, Dillon, and Frenchtown) automatically qualified for Divisionals. The bottom three teams played two “play in” games for the #4 seed. Stevensville hosted Butte Central in the first Divisional “play in” game on Thursday, Oct 26th. The Lady ‘Jackets controlled the game throughout and defeated the Lady Maroons 3-1. For Stevensville, Olivia Cannon had 4 aces and 13 digs, Alexia Perez had 11 kills and 9 digs, Jaidan Oyler had 18 assists and 14 digs, Shilo Lampi had 8 kills and 3 blocks, and Kyndahl Plantz had 7 kills and 6 blocks.
This sent Stevensville to Corvallis on Saturday, Oct. 28th where they played the Lady Blue Devils in the second Divisional “play in” game. The two teams split their regular season matchups, but on this day Corvallis had the hot hand and won 3-0. With the win, Corvallis qualified as the #4 seed in the Western A Divisional tournament.