The Lady Hawks may not have won their way to the State B tourney this season like they have many times in the past, but coach Sandra Kazmierczak says she has never enjoyed coaching a team more.

The young Lady Hawks completed a competitive season of play in the Western B divisional tournament in Eureka last week, falling to eventual divisional champion Florence 25-14, 25-10, 25-9 Thursday, and being eliminated by Anaconda 25-20, 25-21, 25-19 Friday.

Kazmierczak, who has proven time and again to be one of the top volleyball coaches in Montana over the years, was nothing but complimentary towards her latest group of Lady Hawks looking back on the season.

"This is a winning team in my book," she said. "We might not have won every match but we never stopped working hard and learning to be better as we went. I have never coached a team that worked as hard as these girls did, and we were still improving at the end."

One year removed from a stirring run to the third place State B trophy in 2016, still the only trophy ever won by a volleyball team from Sanders County in a state net tourney, the Lady Hawks carried over a few players from that team but were largely untested otherwise, and had to learn how to be the best they could be again this season.

In Kazmierczak's mind, they passed that test with flying colors this fall.

"Everybody stepped up, we lost a lot of players from the year before but the girls filled their new roles and did great with it," she said. "I had no problems with this group, they never complained and handled everything the season threw at them with class."

The Lady Hawks met the Florence Falcons in the first round of the Western B Thursday.

Lexy VanElswyk, Brooke Bowlin and Jody Detlaff each hit three kills to lead the Hakw, VanElswyk blocked two shots, Riley Wilson and Maya Stiles hit five digs each, Wilson had five set assists and Stiles a service ace.

Rilee Mangun spiked seven kills, blocked two shots and hit three aces for Florence, Hudsyn DiBrito had 11 digs, and Shay Walldbillig hit 25 set assists.

John Hamilton

A TIME TO KILL - Brooke Bowlin goes high for a kill attempt against Troy Oct. 27 as teammate Lexy VanElswyk follows the play. Lady Hawks completed season play at the Western B tournament in Eureka last week.

Back on court the next day against Anaconda, Detlaff and Bowlin hit 10 and eight kills apiece, respectively, Van Elswyk had five blocks and Detlaff three, Stiles hit 16 digs, VanElwyk 14 and Bowlin 11, Elsie Brown dished out a team-hihg 10 assists, Wilson added five and Megan Baxter four, and Sarah Detlaff and VanElswyk hit a service ace each.

No statistics from Anaconda were available.

Florence and Eureka eventually finished first and second in the tournament and will now represent the Western B division in the Class B portion of the Montana All-Class volleyball tourney in Bozeman this week.