Late season wake-up call motivates Clark Fork volleyball at state

BURLEY — The Clark Fork volleyball team has maintained a firm grip on the North Star League title over the past four years. This has allowed the Lady Cats to make state an expectation for the program.

But the team hasn’t brought a state trophy back with them since 2011 when Clark Fork placed third. The Lady Cats’ journey back to glory begins at 9:30 a.m. PST Friday when they take on Castleford at Burley High School to open the 1A Division II state tournament.

The Lady Cats (12-2) will lean on all-league selections Katelyn Matteson, Taylor Staley, Caiya Yanik and Emily Myers, and co-North Star League MVP Paige Valliere down in Burley.

Clark Fork entered 2020 fresh off a second straight undefeated season in league play. Sure they lost four starters from last year’s state squad, but the Lady Cats’ goal of earning a postseason berth remained intact. And it didn’t hurt that their path to state got much clearer.

The North Star League shrunk from five teams to three — Clark Fork, Mullan and Kootenai.

Despite having an easier journey, the Lady Cats still had to earn it. State wasn’t a given.

The confident squad showed how badly they wanted to get back to the postseason, compiling a 9-1 record before entering a home match with Mullan on Oct. 8. The No. 1 seed to the district tournament was up for grabs that night, but Clark Fork was feeling good about their chances after sweeping Mullan in three sets a month earlier.

The Tigers didn’t lay down though and clawed their way to a thrilling five-set victory over the Lady Cats.

That loss ignited a fire under Clark Fork and allowed them to travel to Mullan two weeks later and beat the Tigers in straight sets to win the league title and a berth to state.

“In that game, we played like ourselves,” Myers said.

The team admitted they went into that second matchup with Mullan overconfident and expecting a W, and they believe that defeat was the wake-up call they needed.

“It showed us we have to work and can’t show up expecting it,” Paige Valliere said.

“It was like, ‘Oh, state is not going to be a given this season like we might have thought,’ so it really pushed us to get better,” Myers said.

Clark Fork opened the season with only eight players, but the squad has grown to 11 over the course of the season. Head coach Michelle Valliere said she believes that depth will pay dividends at state and allow the team to make adjustments if someone goes down.

“It will definitely help with team camaraderie and ... it will be good to have more people cheering than just one or two,” she said.

The state volleyball tournament will be a little different this year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament will not be double elimination like years past. That means if Clark Fork wins its opening match with Castleford, the Lady Cats will be one victory away from making the state title match.

The environment inside the gym will also be different. On Monday, Gov. Brad Little announced he was moving the state back to Stage 3, meaning only 50 people will be allowed inside the gym for every match.

The Lady Cats boast plenty of youth this season. The team is made up of four juniors, three sophomores, four freshmen and no seniors.

Friday’s opponent is the exact opposite. Castleford has nine seniors and a 2019 state appearance under its belt.

Clark Fork may be inexperienced at the state level, but Michelle has watched her team mature throughout the season and seen the sophomores and juniors take on significant leadership roles.

“Our sophomores realize they’re next in line,” she said.

Castleford is 18-0 this season and Michelle said the Wolves are a complete team with three hard hitters and the team will need to be ready for some strong jump serves.

Michelle said her girls will need to be flexible on the court if they want to see success at state.

“We just need to go down there and not be in our heads,” she said. “We need to play our game, we need to be smart with what we’re doing … and we just have to read what they're doing on their side of the court and make adjustments.”

Paige, a sophomore setter, started on last year’s state team that went 0-2. In order to avoid a similar fate, she said the Lady Cats need to be constantly communicating on the court to make sure everyone knows their assignment.

Michelle is using this postseason to build a brighter future. All the players on this squad will be back next fall and Michelle said this opportunity will help the Lady Cats be more battle-tested in the future.

“It’s going to be amazing to go down there and get in the gym,” she said. “A lot of times the first year you get down there you’re just freaked out, so it will be good to get them that experience.”

Paige, Myers, Yanik and Matteson all traveled down to state in 2019 and they plan on passing their state memories onto the younger members of the team, so they don’t get overwhelmed by the environment.

“It is a big tournament and it’s a big deal,” Paige said, “but you can’t let it get to us, you have to prepare for it like it’s any other game.”

About midway through the season, Michelle switched up her starting lineup and moved Matteson to middle front and Myers to outside hitter. The move benefited both players and made Clark Fork even more formidable.

“Emily’s a really good passer and so it’s definitely helped having her on the left side,” she said. “I think Katelyn was excited to play middle front, it’s something different and something new. I think she likes the competition and the blocking and the hustle. I just think they really enjoy where I put them and it makes them play harder.”

Myers, a sophomore, said moving out to outside hitter gave her a lot of freedom on the court.

“I like it a lot more than hitting middle because there’s liberty,” she said. “I can hit line, angle and put the ball where I want.”

Over the past few months with everything going in the world, Yanik said this team has meant a lot to her. Myers added that everyone is looking forward to getting closer to one another, blaring music in the bus and hanging out in the hotel.

“It’s going to be a little different with COVID-19,” she said, “but I think it’s going to be so fun getting into that big gym and working together.”

In Yanik’s eyes, a win against Castleford would make the journey to state successful.

“Winning that first game is an accomplishment,” she said.

This team is special to the junior because she believes they defied the odds.

“I think a lot of people doubted us, but we’re going back to state,” she said.

Michelle is expecting her team to leave it all on their court.

“I want to play as hard as we can,” she said. “If the other team is just flat out better and they are making adjustments to the things that we’ve studied and we’re going to put into place and they beat us, then we have given everything we had.

I think we have the potential to do something down there.”

You can watch Clark Fork’s match against Castleford live on the NFHS Network at 9:30 a.m. PST. A subscription to the website costs $10.99 per month.

With a victory, the Lady Cats would face the winner of Deary-Watersprings in the state semifinals Saturday morning. With a loss, Clark Fork would face the loser of that match at 5 p.m. PST Friday.