HELENA -- The Helena High volleyball team will host Missoula Hellgate on Thursday, and the Bengals are ready. The Bengals have been practicing for about four weeks now, and head coach Lindsey Day said they've been itching to get into a game situation for nearly half of that time.
"Early last week, I could tell they were ready to get on the court and compete and they were kind of sick of practicing," said Day. "I kind of had to switch things up and plan a scrimmage and shorten some practices up just to kind of give them a little bit of break to keep them engaged."
It's not just Day saying that she's felt that way. Her players said they have been wanting to get onto the court and physically play against someone other than their teammates for a little while now.
"Pretty early on," said Maddie McNeil when asked at what point was she ready to get into a game scenario. "I think that we just work really well together, and I'm really just ready to actually play an actual game."
Physically the players have been wanting to play against another team as opposed to their teammates, though some players who play more than one sport have been wanting to actively compete since the middle of March.
"It's been kind of hard, you just want to get moving and play this sport. My club volleyball season was canceled, too. I usually do club and track together and then we move when that ends, we go straight into school volleyball with open gyms and conditioning and workouts," said Aubrie Christman. "Not having that was kind of hard, but we still found ways to work out and still stay together as a team."
The Bengals are set to host Hellgate for a volleyball match that will open the Bengals' season on at 7 p.m. Thursday.
