Trojans end season at tourney

The season came to an end last week for the Whitehall High School volleyball team.

The Trojans dropped two hard-fought contests at last week's 5B District Tournament in Belgrade. Whitehall fell in their opening match to Three Forks (28-26, 14-25, 18-25, 18-25), and in a five-set heartbreaker to Manhattan in the fifth set.

Head Coach Kyla Simon thought her team started well in their first match against Three Forks because they were able to run their offense and attack the ball.

"Because of that, we were able to throw them out of their offensive system and they were forced to send us a lot of free balls and we were able to capitalize on those," she said.

In the next two games, Simon felt the team was unable to attack as much because they struggled with passing and the Wolves adjusted in terms of the block and defense.

Simon was happy with the way the team responded and bounced back in the elimination game against the Tigers.

"The girls played some really good defense and were relentless in returning the ball to Manhattan which eventually led to them making hitting errors. We forced them to make their own mistakes for most of the game, but we got stuck in serve receive too many times for too many points in a row. I thought we were going to get them in the fifth game, and it broke my heart for the girls that we got so close and came up short. They worked as hard as they could the whole game," she said.

Looking back on the season, Simon said she cannot say enough good things about this group of young women.

"They bought into what I was coaching right away in pre-season and they did everything I asked them to do without question. We had some great moments this season that none of us will forget. We had some close games that we fought hard to win and some losses that taught us some really valuable lessons. One of my main goals was to improve all season long until the end and I think we did that," she said.

Simon added she owes a lot of assistant Royann Wolfe.

"She was a great support to me throughout the season," she said.

Along with a tremendous improvement in the program, Simon also discussed how the team strived to be better people.

"There were lots of times this season that we said, 'it's awesome to be good volleyball players, but it's better to be good people' and these young women live that and truly are a great bunch that deserves all of the support in the world. I'm proud of our season and I'm looking forward to the future," she said.