KALISPELL — The Kalispell Glacier volleyball team fell to the No. 1 team in Western AA, Missoula Sentinel, on Tuesday in four sets. Despite the defeat, Glacier saw silver linings.
"You know Sentinel is a really good team, so our goal was to compete well with good teams and so we appreciate that opportunity to be able to compete with them, Glacier coach Christy Harkins said. "So we are going to keep working. We got a long time until divisionals to try and clean stuff up and so we will be better by then."
Glacier averaged 35 kills and ten blocks while Sentinel averaged 51 kills and eight blocks. Harkins said what she loves most about this young Wolfpack team is their tenacity to want to get better.
“We have great young players, they are athletic they want to learn they want to improve they are extremely coachable they listen they follow game plans they do all kinds of things really well like that and we have two strong strong senior leaders, Sidney Gulick and Sammie Labrum,” said Harkins.
Being a young team also comes with learning how to adapt to pressure.
"Pressure I think is a big thing just because we want to follow our last years team, it was really big we had nine seniors so it was crazy losing everyone, so I think we have a lot of pressure to carry on their legacy," Sidney Gulick said.
As they carry on the legacy of last year's seniors, Harkins said there are two things she wants this team to strive for.
"You know integrity, bringing good competitive effort, every single match that we play," said Harkins.
"Just our tenacity and hunger to get every ball we try to send it over on every ball even if we don’t get a great swing," Gulick said.
