Week-in and week-out any team can come away with a win. There is a high-level competition in Region 7 and every team has a competitive edge.
Taylor Brown, the head coach of New England, said it’s really anybody’s game. With each team in the final week of its regular season, the Region 7 Tournament is just around the corner.
“It’s great for the girls to play such tough competition,” Brown said. “It’s whatever team shows up that night is going to win.”
Many coaches and players agree with Brown. On Tuesday, Dickinson Trinity played Beach for the top seed in the tournament. Beach swept Trinity 3-0.
However, earlier this season Trinity swept Beulah, while the Buccaneers needed five sets to defeat the Miners.
“The region this year is tougher than the regions of the last couple years,” Trinity head coach Rayma Braaten said. “I seriously think any team can win (the Region 7 title). It’s just whoever comes consistent, is mentally ready and plays hard.”
With a week left in the regular season, the Titans are working on smoothing out the rough edges and become more consistent.
“We’re going to focus on passing, defense and minimizing our own errors,” Trinity senior middle hitter Allison Steffan said.
The same can’t be said about the Tigers, which are attempting to fill in position after injuries. The Tigers wrap up their regular season traveling to Bowman County at 6:30 p.m. today.
“We’re focusing more on getting together as a team,” Brown said. “We’ve had to move things around quite a bit with injuries. We’re kind of getting used to new positions, which is kind of scary at the end of the season.”
After their first region loss of the year, the Titans host Killdeer for their regular season finale at 6:30 Tuesday. Braaten has the confidence her team can continue on the right path.
“We are just going to keep working on our weaknesses and hope to end the regular season on a good note,” she said. “The girls and I talk about working hard. We want to work harder as a team.”
The rest of Region 7 wrapping up its regular season schedules as Beach travels to Heart River at 7 p.m., Bowman County goes to Hettinger-Scranton at 6:30 p.m. and Hazen makes a quick trip over to Beulah at 6:30 p.m.
The teams turn around and begin the Region 7 Tournament at 3 p.m. on Friday at Knights of Columbus Activities Center. Steffan and Braaten said it will be nice to have the region tournament at home.
“We’ll have our fans here and it will just overall be more exciting,” Steffan said. “Whoever plays the hardest in our region is going to get it. You just have to want it more than everybody else.”
Braaten added: “The awesome thing right now is we don’t have to travel anymore and we’ll be able to have our people and our gym. It makes us feel really comfortable.”
