Sandpoint battles, falls short in four sets against Moscow

SANDPOINT — Sandpoint volleyball certainly didn’t make it easy on rival Moscow on Saturday.

The Bulldogs had a chance to win the opening two sets but couldn’t quite pull them out en route to a four set defeat to the Bears at Les Rogers Court.

Sandpoint (5-11, 0-4 IEL) lost 28-26, 26-24, 18-25, 26-24.

The Bulldogs have now lost nine straight regular season matches.

“I’m proud of some things we did tonight,” Sandpoint volleyball head coach Karen Alsager said. “We all feel like we can beat that team because that team only has good defense and tip tendencies, they don’t have power so if we can play the defense to pick up the tips we should be able to beat them but we didn’t do it tonight. Its scary when you know you can beat a team but your team doesn’t have the confidence to push through.”

After dropping the first game, the Bulldogs took a 16-6 lead in the second set. Sandpoint got a 23-18 advantage and only need two more points to grab the second game, but the Bears had other plans and went on a 8-1 run to claim the set.

Alsager said one thing prevented her team from holding onto leads in the first and second sets.

“Our confidence,” she said. “After so many losing matches, we can be ahead and feel like we’re behind. It’s like ‘do you even look at the score, do you realize that we’re still ahead.’ ”

The Bulldogs were finally able to put together a complete game in the third to avoid being swept by Moscow for the second time this season.

Sandpoint fell down 17-11 in the fourth set but battled back and fought off four straight match points by Moscow to even the game at 24 apiece. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough as the Bears won the set and the match.

Junior Kinzie Ward led the Bulldogs with 35 digs and senior Jenny Slaveck had 29 digs and 15 kills. Junior setter Kaylee Banks added 26 assists, junior CeCe Deprez had 19 and senior Katie Korn notched 14 kills.

The Bulldogs play at Lake City 7 p.m. Monday in their final regular season match.