The MSU-Northern Skylights volleyball team was on the road this weekend at the midseason Frontier-North Star Challenge in Billings. The Skylights won all three of their matches in straight sets.
In the first match early Friday morning, Northern took care of Mayville State, three sets to none. After a thrilling first set that saw the Skylights win, (31-29), they took the final two easily by the same count of (25-18). Stats that stood out were 15 more kills, (50-35), a significantly better team hitting percentage of (.218-.125), and 17 more assists, (50-33). The Skylights also stayed in matches longer with 64 digs.
Match No. 2 was later on Friday afternoon with Northern squaring off against Valley City State. The Skylights took the match (3-0) with (25-23), (28-26), and (25-15) individual set victories. Alana Graves led the way with 13 kills and hit .500 in addition to seven blocks. Lexa Stock was right behind with 12 kills while Baily Egan led the way with 20 digs and Macee Murphy recording 27 assists.
The Skylights closed out the final Frontier-North Star Challenge with a matinee against Dickinson State on Saturday. After a competitive first set victory (25-22), the Skylights dominated the rest of the way with (25-5) and (25-14) victories in the next two sets to close out the match and tournament. The Skylights hit .292 as a team to the Blue Hawks’ .041 in the convincing victory.
Northern is now (10-9) and will return to Frontier Conference play this week with two matches starting Thursday on the road at Providence and then back home to host the annual “Pink Night” match against Rocky Mountain on Saturday.
