Tobin gets 300th win

By The Montana Standard Staff - 10/04/2008

Tobin

HAVRE — Marilyn Tobin and her Montana Tech Orediggers celebrated a milestone Friday night — with flashlights and pizza on a broken-down bus in the Armory Gym parking lot.

Montana Tech had just outlasted Montana State-Northern 25-18, 25-9, 27-29, 17-25, 15-8 in a Frontier Conference college women's volleyball match. When the Orediggers tried to leave afterward, the bus wouldn't start.

And, oh, by the way, the victory was Tobin's 300th as a head volleyball coach — all at Montana Tech.

Tobin said Shawn Huse, the Northern head men's basketball coach who played and coached with the Orediggers, and his wife, Stephanie Anderson-Huse, a former Montana Tech volleyball star, tried to help by offering to jump the bus battery with their car.

It didn't work.

So, the Huses helped arrange for a tow truck. The lights went out in the parking lot and Orediggers assistant coach Shaela Evenson ordered pizza.

Hey, no such thing as too many frills when you're celebrating 300 wins.

The win itself was worth celebrating. Montana Tech played very well, Tobin said.

"We started off awesome," she said. "The first two games, we

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were executing the offense better than we had all year long. We did it for 25 points. Northern didn't get a chance to get rolling at all.

"In the third game, we were beating them quite handily. Then we lost our focus. People felt we were going to win without finishing the match. And when we lost our focus, Northern really started playing well."

The Skylights stormed back.

"Their hitters were pounding the ball on us and they totally grabbed the momentum away from us," Tobin said. "The third game, we were doing quite well and they came back and dominated us in the fourth game. In the fifth game, we got back to playing our game, got the lead, didn't let it go and were able to win."

Jodi Hogart set 40 assists in the win and Maria McNeil hammered 17 kills. Cassie Hodges ahd 14 kills. Kristi Witt came up with 14 digs.

"The first game, we hit .313 as a team and then .332 in the second," Tobin said. "Lacie Brenton served 14 straight points in one run. She had a good match. She served very aggressively and she was passing and digging the ball.

"Everybody contributed to us winning the first two games and everybody also contributed to our demise the second two games."

Tobin pointed out, too, that Hodges hit .520. She had her 14 kills out of 25 attempts with one error."

The Northern leader, Tobin said, was Brittany Baker with 16 kills and a .462 hitting average.

"She was unstoppable," Tobin said. "She was really cranking on the ball. We finally got a block on her, I think, in the third game."

No faxed or posted match stats were received at the newspaper from Northern, and Tobin had trouble reading the Skylights' lines in the dark bus with Evenson holding a flashlight over the sheet of paper.

"It doesn't feel like I should be old enough to have 300 wins," Tobin said. "The years went quickly."

Tobin is in her 19th year as the Orediggers head coach. She graduated from the school in 1988.

"It's nice to be around long enough to be able get that 300th win," Tobin said.

Her overall record is 300-309. The Orediggers are 2-4 in the Frontier Conference this year, and 9-9 overall for the season. They will play at the Unviersity of Great Falls on Saturday in a 7 p.m. league match.

Montana Tech stats — Shelby Zentner 1 dig; Savanna Lester 5 digs; Janet Friesz 8 kills, 2 digs, 1 block; Kristi Witt 1 kill, 1 ace, 14 digs; Lacie Brenton 1 kill, 5 aces, 8 digs; Samantha Sheble 2 kills, 1 block; Jodi Hogart 6 kills, 40 assists, 7 digs, 1 block; CoreyAnne Russell 8 kills, 1 dig, 3 blocks; Maria McNeil 17 kills, 1 assist, 7 digs; Cassie Hodges 14 kills, 1 dig, 1 block.