CFHS volleyball looks to stay on top of the North Star League

The Clark Fork volleyball team finished the regular season 13-5 overall and 4-0 in the North Star League in 2021.

Heading into its state play-in game against Deary, head coach Michelle Valliere got hit hard with COVID-19.

Due to the illness, Valliere missed the game, and the Wampus Cats ultimately fell to the Mustangs 3-1, falling short of making the state tournament.

Despite the misfortune of not making it to the state tournament, almost 90 percent of the lineup from last year will be back on the court seeking redemption.

“I really thought we were going to be able to go to state and do something,” Valliere said. “We had three seniors last year that played a big part of the team and even with people coming back, I was still a little nervous. But we had a girl transfer here from Montana and a couple more girls who I didn’t think were going to play ended up showing up as well.”

The Wampus Cats will also be returning senior Emily Myers.

A year ago, Myers went down during the basketball season with a torn ACL. This year, she’ll be able to make her return to the volleyball court.

“She is a senior with a ton of experience,” Valliere said. “I expect her to step into a team captain role. She’s super encouraging and motivating.”

Paige Valliere, daughter to head coach Michelle, will also be back for her senior campaign as the setter for the Wampus Cats.

“She’s been a captain since she was a sophomore,” Valliere said. “She’ll definitely be a team captain this year. She’s super motivating to the team, and shows up to everything, whether it's offseason, practice, anything.”

Even with the return of senior leadership, there are still some young players who will find their way onto the court following successful club seasons.

Club volleyball has been a big factor in the development of not only the sport of volleyball in the area of Clark Fork but also the athletes, according to Valliere.

“The biggest strength of the team has to be how much club ball these girls play together,” she said. “I would say 80 percent of our varsity plays club volleyball, and that just helps so much.”

Team chemistry and being from a small school have also bonded these girls closer on the court, according to Valliere.

“We all get along really well,” she said. “We all have that small town; everybody knows everybody's mentality.”

The weakness for the Wampus Cats will be getting used to playing all together once the season begins to roll all around.

Although a lot of the players are returning, there will still be one to two players on the court who won’t have varsity experience.

“I would say 90 percent of the time the court will have four girls on it that have high school varsity experience,” Valliere explained. “But not everybody at the varsity level has played together for a year or more; there are some new faces out there. I can see when you play with someone for so long you almost know what they're going to do, but that might take a bit of time with this group.”

The small but mighty Clark Fork volleyball team had 22 girls come and try out for the team, which is the most players that’s tried out since Valliere has been the head coach of the team.

“It’s insane,” she said. “When I started coaching when my oldest daughter was a freshman back in 2000, we had 19 girls and that was the most on the team and two years ago I didn't have enough to fill a JV team. This year we’ll definitely have enough for a Junior Varsity team.”

A problem a lot of 1A DII teams face is scheduling issues.

Teams in the league will often provide good matchups; however, the nonleague portion of the schedule sometimes tends to get out of hand.

However, this year, Valliere complimented athletic director Ronald Mason with the way he scheduled games.

“He reached out to me and asked me who I wanted to play with,” she said. “I told him who I wanted to play and who I wanted to see, but there are those teams in your league that you just can’t get away from. When you’re wasting your time playing a team, you beat 25-10, it’s a little rough.”

The Clark Fork volleyball team will open up its season against Bonners Ferry on Tuesday, September 6.