Jason Walker, UP Sports Information
BUTTE, Mont. - The University of Providence volleyball team battled with the (2) seed Rocky Mountain College but saw its season end with a five-set loss to the Battlin' Bears in the Semifinals of the Frontier Conference Tournament Friday night in Butte. The final score line was 25-20, 25-20, 23-25, 25-22, 12-15.
The first set was back and forth with teams trading points. With the score tied at 9-9, Rocky scored five straight points to take control of the set. The second set saw the Argos jump out to leads of 9-4, 14-7, and 18-10 to even up the match at 1-1 after Ruby Morse knocked down a Bella Thompson set.
Providence held a 22-20 lead in the third set before Rocky scored five of the next six points to get the win. The Argos took a 16-16 tie in the fourth and went up 21-17, closing out the set on a Zoe Naugle kill to send the semifinal match to a deciding fifth set. It was 5-5 when Rocky's Taylor Wolf came up with a kill to give the Battlin' Bears a lead they would not relinquish.
Naugle would finish the match with 16 kills and six blocks. Jensyn Turner also had 16 kills to continue where she left off in the quarterfinal win over MSU-Northern earlier in the day. Bailey Christensen had 12 kills and 30 digs while Adysen Burns added 11 kills with 23 digs.
Taylor Christensen led the Argos with 36 digs, Thompson tallied 62 assists in the loss which ends Providence's season at 10-20 overall.
Head Coach Arunas Duda was proud of his team's effort after the match, "I could not be prouder of this team. The effort, the concentration for them to play a complete match. Gosh, a 2–3-point game that could have gone either way.
"We have nothing to hang our heads about. We have a lot to build on and I am excited about the future of our program."
Rocky was led by Kyra Oakland who had 16 kills and the Battlin' Bears advanced to Saturday's Frontier Conference Championship where they will face (6) seed Montana Western which knocked off top seed Montana Tech.
