GREAT FALLS – “We’re not the old CMR. We’re the new CMR.”
Those were senior Teagan Taylor’s words following Great Falls CMR’s three set sweep over Butte in the AA playoffs. The win earned the Rustlers their first State AA tournament berth since 2009.
“I can’t even imagine,” Taylor said. “It’s such a good feeling that we came here this far as a team and I couldn’t imagine anything better than this. We’ve definitely a grown a lot. We started at the bottom, but we’ve grown so much as a team.”
Butte came out fired up in the first set and jumped out to a 10-6 lead. But CMR rallied for a 25-22 win behind the dominant front line of Taylor and junior middle blocker Allie Olsen.
The Rustlers claimed the next two sets 25-19 and 25-17 for the sweep, and then celebrated like it was 2009 as friends, family and fans joined the team on the court.
CMR (16-13, 7-5) will head to Bozeman next weekend as the No. 4 out of the East and will face West No. 1 seed Helena Capital (24-2, 11-1) in the first round of the State AA tournament Thursday at 2 p.m.
