BILLINGS — Kambrie Kountz is well aware of the Circle volleyball legacy. She knows its past, she's part of its present, and she hopes to lay the foundation for a reconnected future.
The Wildcats reached the Class C state tournament eight straight years beginning in 2004, the first year that the Montana High School Association began hosting all four classifications under the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse roof in Bozeman.
The following two years the Wildcats missed out on the tournament, but in 2014 another three-year run began.
Amid all that — 11 state appearances in 13 seasons — Kountz had cousins as well as her current coach win a state championship. During that run, the Wildcats claimed state titles in 2007 and 2015 and earned three additional tournament trophies.
“We were a beast,” said Kountz, a senior libero for the Wildcats.
Beast mode has fallen by the wayside, though the Wildcats hope they are on their way to reclaiming it. Following a fourth-place finish in 2016, five long years — long for Wildcat Nation, that is — passed before Circle could again make the 360-mile drive to the Montana State University campus.
Under the guidance of first-year coach and 2015 state champion McKinna Yerbich, the Wildcats qualified for the state tournament in 2022. They bowed out in two straight games, but at least the drought was over.
Small-school coaches talk all the time about how intimidating that first trip to “The Brick” can be. The sheer size of the arena, with four courts laid on its surface, screaming fans and multitudes of whistles, can be overwhelming.
Circle’s earlier programs had that chain of state-tournament experience to pass down year to year. The Wildcats of 2022 didn’t have that. Sometimes how teams do at the state tournament isn’t dependent on the talent, but how they handle the atmosphere.
“When we got there, it was so unreal,” said junior Madeline Moline, who was a freshman on that 2022 team. “It was just crazy. You could fit 10 of our gyms in that arena we played in. We just weren't used to that.”
Despite the 2022 fallout, the 2023 season began with great excitement until standout Grace Gackle, the team’s lone senior, tore her ACL on the opening weekend.
A funny thing happened on a season-long journey that saw the players’ emotions go from hopeful to despair to hopeful again to, finally, disappointment: A young Wildcats team found they could compete even without their best player, and they learned to believe in themselves. But in the end, Circle fell one win shy of qualifying for state by finishing in third place at the Eastern C divisional tournament.
“We made wonderful, wonderful progress,” Yerbich said. “I was so proud of them to get a trophy at divisionals. If you would have told me that at opening weekend when Grace hurt herself, I wouldn't have believed it. But they're resilient girls.”
The Wildcats took that momentum and ran with it. This year’s squad, which features two other seniors besides Kountz, one junior, three sophomores and an eighth grader, has won its first 12 matches.
And that resiliency that Yerbich saw last year is still around. To maintain their unbeaten season, two of the Wildcats’ more recent wins, over Jordan and Savage, came after Circle dropped the first set to eventually win both matches in fifth-set tiebreakers.
Kountz, Moline and Yerbich will tell you a 12-0 record doesn’t say anything about this Wildcats team, yet. They all said there is a long way to go.
The Eastern Division qualifies just two teams for the state tournament, and there are plenty of teams in the running. And, Kountz said, the Wildcats must prove they are a “tournament team.” Additionally, given last season’s history, there could always be an unpleasant surprise lurking around the corner.
As a player, Yerbich made it to the state tournament each of her last three seasons. Kountz said the coach now puts those same expectations on her players.
Yerbich has her own sense of history. When she was a player on the 2015 title team, her coach was Dina Fritz, who played on the 2007 championship team.
To join Fritz as a player and a coach to win titles for Circle would mean the world to Yerbich. But …
“We'd love to say that Circle Wildcat volleyball is back,” Yerbich said. “But, you know, I'm a young coach. I'm still learning. I've got a lot to learn. I've got a lot to prove, and so do the girls. So, we're not quite back, but we're on track for it.”
Given her familiarity of the program’s history, Kountz knows the importance of just getting to Bozeman. Yes, Kountz said, she and fellow seniors Kirsten Wagner and Kylie Erickson would love to go out as state champions.
But just as important, Kountz said, was putting another link in the chain, something they can pass down to the younger players.
“I feel like it'd be good for them to go and see what it's like, so then they have the want to get back there, because I guess that's where I'm at right now,” Kountz said. “I’ve been there, so I know what it's like, and I want to get back there. And I just feel like they need that experience, so they want to keep going back.”
