Sandpoint volleyball falls short in district semifinal

MOSCOW — Sandpoint volleyball’s season is over. They fell in five sets 26-24, 13-25, 17-25, 25-17, 8-15 to No. 2 seed Moscow in the semifinal of the 4A Region 1 tournament Tuesday.

But Bulldogs head coach Karen Alsager was encouraged by her team’s performance after they were swept by the Bears in Moscow earlier this season.

“I’m proud of my girls for how hard they played tonight,” she said. “It is hard to come down to Moscow. They played with their hearts, they played with passion ... it was nice to be in a five game scenario and have a chance. It could have gone either way tonight.”

Alsager said the team did almost everything possible to come away with a victory but committed a few too many errors.

“I know there are going to be errors or they would never get any points but sometimes the errors we make are unnecessary,” she said.

Senior outside hitter Jenny Slaveck led the team with 22 digs and 11 kills and junior middle blocker Bella Phillips had seven blocks.

Junior setter Kaylee Banks notched 25 set assists, senior outside hitter Katie Korn tallied nine kills and senior Aly Lish served four aces.

The Bulldogs finish the season with an overall record of 5-13 after losing 10 straight matches to end the year.

“Its tough because our record is something I don’t want to look back on and remember but I’m not going to choose to focus on that,” Alsager said. “I’m going to look back at the girls and that I got to be apart of their lives in this 2019 season.”

Sandpoint will only lose three seniors from this year’s team and Alsager is already looking forward to next season.

“I know the girls in the program now,” she said. “I know what they can do so now in the offseason I need to teach them what they don’t know. That’s going to be the exciting part.”