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The Hot Springs Savage Heat volleyball team might not win every match, but they will not back down to anyone at any time either.

"These girls are definitely hard workers, they love the fight," coach Alisha Pablo said. "I am proud of the fact that they never say die. Grit is one of this team's favorite words, they just love competition."

The Savage Heat split a pair of hard-fought matches last week, dropping Arlee 25-23, 22-25, 19-25, 15-11 in Arlee Thursday and falling 20-25, 25-22, 25-12, 25-22 to Charlo in Hot Springs Saturday.

Pablo felt most of the damage done to her team against Charlo was self-inflicted.

"We didn't play that badly but our serving really hurt us," she said. "We are usually a strong serving team but we hit an awful lot of our serves into the net against Charlo."

Katleyn Christensen led the Heat in kills against the Lady Vikings with nine, McKennzie Cannon was also very effective, blocking 11 shots, digging up 18 Charlo kill attempts and smacking three service aces, and Sydney Jackson had 15 set assists.

Kaitlin Cox had 24 kills and 19 digs to lead Charlo, Teaira Truman hit 39 assists, Kira McPhail five aces and Liev Smith two blocks.

Statistics from the Arlee match were not available.

The Heat were to have played at Darby Tuesday but results of that match were not available at press time. The Savage Heat will not play again until they host the District 10C tournament in Hot Springs Oct. 25-26.

Pablo thinks the sky is the limit for her young team as the season winds down.

"We really battle for every point, I like this team's persistence," she said. "We just have to try to avoid digging holes for ourselves by falling way behind. We need to stay solid mentally through the entire match and we will be all right."