Bobcat Outsides Guide Gold to Victory
8/16/2025 10:26:00 PM | Women's Volleyball
Volleyball is about head and heart,” Houk said.
Montana State outside hitters Karli Heidemann (Diller, NE/Diller-Odell HS) and Elli Tufto combined for 29 kills while hitting .453 from the field to pace the Bobcat Gold squad to a 25-23, 23-25, 25-19, 25-21 victory over Bobcat Blue on Saturday night in Shroyer Gym.
Montana State head coach Matt Houk mixed the line ups throughout the two-hour scrimmage that saw the Bobcats hit .224, while adding 28.25 digs per set and totaling 12 team blocks as a unit.
This scrimmage offered us a lot of the stuff that we're hoping for, said Houk, who enters his third season at the helm of the Bobcat program. It had some good and it had some bad and it had a lot in between. It's good to play in front of a crowd before we have to actually go play in front of a crowd because there's just the inherent nerves and getting all that stuff out of your system.
It was nice to see a few hundred people here, Houk added. I especially liked the first three sets. Overall, the ball was better than it wasn't. It got a little sloppy in set four. Maybe we're tired a little bit as the first nine days of preseason have been heavy. They probably were running out of gas a little, but again, I saw lots of good, and we had some impressive offensive numbers. And, hey, when you got six freshmen, it's important to get them out there and get them some opportunity. And they all got a little taste of it now.
Freshman setters Teagan Jaynes and Maggie Rhew dished out 43 and 30 assists, respectively. Defensively, senior libero Lauren Lindseth (Great Falls, MT/CMR) notched 18 digs, while Maggie Rhew 13, Heidemann 12, and Afton Thomsen 10, also reached double digits. Joelie Spelts and Makenzie Jackson (Helena, MT/Helena High) led MSU at the net with five blocks, apiece.
Volleyball is about head and heart, Houk said. The head part is definitive. You know the sky's blue, and grass is green, and here's the numbers. You hit positive or you didn't. You passed well or you didn't. And it's important that they know where they're at with that stuff, so they understand what improvements have to be made.
And then there's the heart piece, he added. You're trying to figure out who plays well next to each other and what's the flow of the team when these athletes are on the court versus those athletes. And those things don't necessarily have a numerical value to them. We'll try to marry those two things together and see where we're at.
The Bobcats open the season hosting the EVEN Hotel Invite against Prairie View A&M (Aug. 29), South Dakota (Aug. 30) and Oregon (Aug. 31).
