| Northern Arizona vs. Montana State | vs. Montana |
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (October 3, 2023) – Nearly taking out the two-time defending Big Sky Conference Champion Northern Colorado last week on the road, the Northern Arizona volleyball team will begin a three-match home swing starting with Montana State on Thursday night and Montana on Saturday afternoon.
"We have two very good challenges ahead of us this week," head coach Ken Murphy said. "Both teams have had a good preseason and returned a lot of players to their rosters. It will be important for us to play mature volleyball and do everything we can to defend our home court. If we continue to grow on offense, we will put ourselves in a great position in these matches."
This weekend will be the first of two matches this season against Montana State and Montana. NAU (4-10, 1-2) will travel to Montana on Nov. 2 and Montana State on Nov. 4.
Last season, in its two matches with Montana, both of them went to five sets. On each occasion, it was the Grizzlies who would wind up winning the match. While Montana was victorious in both contests in 2022, Northern Arizona has had a sustained record of success against the Griz, winning nine consecutive meetings before last season.
Only one match was contested between Northern Arizona and Montana State in 2022, and it was the Bobcats sweeping the Lumberjacks in Bozeman on Oct. 15, 2022.
NAU will be looking for its first win over the Bobcats since 2021. Northern Arizona last defeated Montana State during the abbreviated Spring 2021 COVID-19 season on the road in five sets on Feb. 6, 2021. Overall, MSU has won four in a row in the head-to-head series.
At its last home match against Idaho, the Lumberjacks put up its best offensive performance of the season, hitting .324 as a team. The offensive production continued in Greeley this past Saturday.
Hanah Stoddard set a new career-high with 25 kills, hitting at a .365 clip, and Kylie Moran equaled her personal best with 17. As a unit, the Lumberjacks have had at least 15 kills in five of the last nine sets of play.
Montana State, currently sits in third place in the Big Sky Volleyball Conference Standings with a 9-4 record and has won two of its first three matches in conference action. With a new head coach in Matt Houk, the Bobcats started the season winning seven of eight, including an opening-night win over Oregon State.
Kira Thomsen, who won back-to-back Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week awards to start the season, leads all attackers in the Big Sky, striking 3.92 kills per set.
Also featuring a 2-1 to start the conference schedule, Montana has started to pick it up recently after a challenging non-conference slate that saw them face a pair of ranked opponents at home in No. 5 Pitt and No. 17 BYU. The Grizzlies, who were picked to finish sixth in the Big Sky Preseason Coaches Poll, are coming off a sweep over Montana State in the Brawl of the Wild, the first time that the Griz have done that since 2016.
On Monday, Montana's Paige Clark was named the Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week after recording 14 kills with a .632 hitting percentage. Clark is fifth in the conference in kills.
Both the Thursday night and Saturday afternoon matches will be streamed live on ESPN+. First serve on Thursday is set for 6:30 p.m. and 12 p.m. on Saturday.
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