Volleyball: Lady Trojans find groove against Plains

With Senior Night and homecoming all wrapped up into one event, the Troy High School volleyball team had plenty of reasons to feel energized while playing on its own floor.

In addition, the 7-B District tournament loomed on the horizon and the Lady Trojans wanted to finish the regular season with a strong showing. The girls got the job done in a 25-9, 25-15, 25-14 sweep over Plains on Saturday.

“We’ve just got to bring the same game to be able to respond to the obstacles that come our way,” Troy coach Sandra Jansma said about this week’s district tourney at Troy Activity Center. “Our hitters are one of our advantages … we need to capitalize on those opportunities.”

Troy capitalized on Plains mistakes in the weekend victory. But the team did hit a rough spot in the second game. The Trotters got out to a 10-6 lead and held a 12-8 advantage when Jansma called timeout.

Out of the eight points scored by Troy, four had been the result of Plains serving errors.

Jansma said she told her team, “We’ve got to react and gear up our offense and not hope it falls our way. We have extremely good hitters but if we don’t have our passes there, it’s hard to set up the rest of it.”

The Lady Trojans responded in a big way. Following the timeout, Troy scored 11 straight points – a stretch started by a sideout kill from Alyssa Olds.

Troy senior Ashley Paasch followed with a 10-point serving streak, including four ace serves. Kristin Parks, another senior, had back-to-back kills on points 15 and 16 and the Trotters didn’t help themselves with various unforced errors.

Parks finished the second game with a serving streak of four points with two aces.

“We had some good serves and not from just one person,” Jansma said.

Kimmy Klin had six of the team’s 15 aces. Klin, Parks and Jessica Lyons all had long serving streaks in the first game. Klin also had a pretty good run near the beginning of the third.

Parks ended up with eight of the team’s 27 kills to go along with six digs and one block. Olds had all 21 set assists and Paasch chipped in a half-dozen digs.

Earlier in the week, Noxon pulled off a 17-25, 25-12, 23-25, 25-23, 15-8 win over the Lady Trojans in a nonconference matchup.

Troy takes a 4-6 district mark and 6-11 overall record into the district tournament, scheduled for Friday and Saturday at the Troy Activity Center.

District 7-B Tournament

Friday at Troy Activity Center

Seedings – 1, Bigfork; 2, Eureka; 3, Thompson Falls; 4, Troy; 5, Mission; 6, Plains.

1 p.m. – Troy vs. Mission

3 p.m. – Thompson Falls vs. Plains

5 p.m. – Bigfork vs. Troy-Mission winner

7 p.m. – Eureka vs. Thompson Falls-Plains winner

Saturday at Troy Activity Center

9 a.m. – Elimination match.

11 a.m. – Elimination match.

1 p.m. – Winner’s bracket match.

3 p.m. – Elimination match.

5 p.m. – Third-place match.

7 p.m. – Championship match.

Note: If necessary, a second championship match will be played at 9 p.m.