Scotty volleyball survives tough Dickinson Tournament, sets sights on preparing for Malta

The Glasgow volleyball team traveled to the Dickinson Tournament in North Dakota this weekend and came out with more than expected.

Playing in a pool with a Class A and Class AA team, the Scotties fell just short of tournament's Silver bracket, losing their last pool match to Class B Watford City, N.D., in the third and final set.

“We were so close to that,” head coach Lori Dailey said. “That was a little disappointing, but basically how we played on Friday I was happy with.”

The loss to Watford City put a damper on an overall bright Friday for the Scotties.

After losing to the host school and eventual tournament champion Dickinson, the Scotties came back to beat Class AA Sturgis, S.D., to set up a battle of small schools for entry to the Silver Tournament.

Instead, the Scotties were left in the Bronze Tournament, which ended up being a bracket full of schools from Northeast Montana. Plentywood, Poplar, Malta and Glendive joined the Scotties in the Bronze bracket.

“It's a bummer to go how ever many miles it is and play the same teams,” Dailey said. “But that's our own fault for not winning that one match against Watford City. It was really short sighted.”

Glasgow won its matches against Poplar and Plentywood after losing the opening match against Stanley, N.D.

As she prepares the team to face Malta this weekend, Dailey said the Scotties are working to keep their game consistently strong, so they don't have another situation like the one against Watford City.

“We're going to work on a little more footwork in passing and defense,” Dailey said. “It's a review week.”

Malta is down so far this season, playing with a young squad and struggling against some of the top conference teams. The M-ettes are 1-2 in conference and 7-14 overall.

The bright spot for the Scotties is that their losses last weekend have prepared them for the tough home stretch that they will face in conference.

“It exposed some weaknesses that we can kind of skim over during conference play,” Dailey said. “They presented us with challenges that we don't see often.”

The Scotties will try to improve on what they learned when they take on Malta on Saturday and Poplar on Tuesday.