The Dickinson High volleyball team deserves some credit for helping prepare Billings West for the Montana postseason.
Billings West got a heavy dose of how much a difference height can make on the volleyball floor.
The Midgets thumped the Golden Bears 25-9, 25-19 in the Gold Division of the Dickinson Invitational on Saturday at the DHS gym.
The Midgets field Paige Nash at 6-foot and Katelyn Steffan at 6-4. The pair gave the Golden Bears fits when they were in the front row.
"Our small stature hurt us," Billings coach Beth Tocci said. "We don't grow them that big in Montana. Missoula has a 6-3 girl but we don't see the western part of the state that much until we get to state."
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Steffan finished the match with 10 kills and six blocks. Nash pounded down eight kills and a block. Whitley Abrahamson dished out 19 assists.
DHS finished the tournament at 6-0 overall in matches and lost just two games the entire tourney - one to Billings Skyview and another to Hettinger.
The Midgets improved to 18-1 overall.
"We had nice consistency through the course of two days," Dickinson coach Jay Schobinger said. "At times we haven't been consistent. The last couple of weeks we've done a nice job of maintaining consistency."
The Midgets played without the services of hitter Whitney Wellenstein, who missed Saturday because of a commitment to play for the Midgets in the West Region girls golf meet. Schobinger played about a dozen athletes throughout the tourney.
"A lot of teams like to come to this tournament because it's a wide variety of competition," Schobinger said. "We got to play two Billings schools, schools 300 miles away. I think that's the draw and the excitement of this tournament. All teams have to adjust and adapt almost from match to match because a lot of times it's teams they never see."
In other tournament action, Hazen stormed the Silver Division tournament after losing its first match of the season on Friday.
The Bison defeated Hardin (Mont.) 25-23, 25-14 to take the Silver championship.
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New England, meanwhile, rebounded from a bad Friday, in which it lost all three of its matches, and won three straight to take home the Bronze Division championship.
The Tigers came from behind in Game 3 of their championship match against Glendive (Mont.) to take a 26-24, 21-25, 26-24 win.
