Senior, Lainey Gregory
Senior, Amanda Cline
A newly minted coach mentored by a Montana preps legend will lead the Big Sandy Pioneers volleyball squad on the court this season.
First-year head coach Brittany McKenney played on back-to-back Class B state champion outfits in 2009 and 2010 at Huntley Project under the tutelage of Iona Stookey. Stookey manufactured a perennial power at the Yellowstone County school, leading the Red Devils to their 11th state title in the past 15 years last season. She entered the Montana Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2017, the same year she became a finalist for national coach of the year honors.
"I look up so much to Iona as a coach," McKenney said. "She has built such a strong program."
McKenney said she picked her former coach's brain fairly extensively for advice prior to assuming the helm this fall at Big Sandy. She speaks of long-term goals for the Pioneers modeled after the style of program Stookey created in her now 30-year tenure at Huntley Project.
"I want to create a culture ... of building each other up and really to become a family," she said. "That is what I want (this team) to be in the years to come."
The Pioneers' senior leadership talked of buying into that concept Friday at the first official practice of the season.
"Having everybody come together as a team is the goal," said senior setter Lainey Gregory. "In the past, we haven't been as successful as we wanted to be. But we think that can change."
Fellow senior Amanda Cline said she has "a really good feeling about this year."
"We're having this thing called 'Sisters,'" Cline said. "We have a senior partnering with a freshman, to really bring these classes together again."
Gregory and Cline are joined in a sizable senior contingent by Hope Gasvoda, Seanna Demontiney and Stacey Allderdice. The biggest group of Pioneers, however, turning out this fall is a freshman class of Malaysia Baumann, Mace Bachoco, Daisy LaBuda, Laynee Ophus, Cadyence Pleninger, Angie Sant, Kylee Sternberg, Josalynn Genereux and Jaycee Worrall. Juniors Noelle Beirwagen, Jozlyn Baumann, Alicia Bjornestad and Madison Terry completed the first-day-of-practice roster along with sophomores Anna Allderdice, Amiya Griffith, Sami Sandlin, Haley Schwenke and Tavie Wortman.
"With all my seniors, I'm excited to see how they perform. I feel like I've got some pretty strong athletes," McKenney said. "They're pretty vocal for the most part and I like that because we are going to need that for communication ... on the court (and) not just pushing each other but the underclassmen. These seniors know they have to set the tone for the whole group."
The coach is leading a high school team for the first time after playing collegiately for two seasons at the University of Great Falls (now University of Providence) and heading up the Montana Elite club program's U12 squad and assistant coaching their U14 team. She acknowledged it is a "different dynamic" with daily practices. Club teams sometimes only practice once a week in addition to playing tournaments, McKenney said.
"I want them to keep developing positive attitudes and I hope that we just keep continuing to get better," McKenney said. "I hope to see these freshmen grow for the next four years."
Gregory said she is encouraged to have so many teammates on the floor after as few as a dozen netters suited up for Big Sandy in some of her underclassman years. Though McKenney said she is new enough to the league not to have scouted opponents much yet, seniors Gregory and Cline each pointed to a rival who they are eager to measure up against this season and try to mark some improvement.
"Chinook," Cline said. "We beat them in one set and we want to beat them in a (full) game this year."
Cline referred to the Pioneers' 25-20 second-set win as the Sugarbeeters' homecoming guest on Sept. 27, 2018. The Beeters took the match 3 sets to 1, en route to an undefeated regular season and a District 6C-East title before finishing in third place at the Northern C Divisional tournament to bow out one victory short of a state berth.
"It's really fun to play those girls," Cline said of the always-challenging Sugarbeeters.
Chinook is scheduled to host the Pioneers on Thursday, Sept. 5, with the Pioneers welcoming the Beeters to their home gym on Friday, Oct. 4.
Big Sandy hopes to improve upon a 2018 season which saw them enter the District 6-C East as the no. 4 seed before succumbing to Chester/Joplin-Inverness and Box Elder, each in four sets, to exit the tournament.
The Pioneers are scheduled to begin their season with a lengthy series of road matches mixed in with a pair of neutral-site tournaments, with a visit Friday, Aug. 30, to Centerville slated first. They will then finish the season with six of their final nine regular-season dates at home, beginning with a visit Friday, Sept. 27, from Hays/Lodge Pole and concluding with a home date against their nearest rival, the Box Elder Bears, on Friday, Oct. 25.
