By Matt Gade

605 Sports

SPEARFISH — Riding an 18-match win streak, the Spearfish volleyball team is ready to step up and see how the Spartans truly match up against some of the best teams in Class AA.

After a rocky start to the season, going 1-5 in their first six contests, the Spartans have bounced back to win their next 18 capped off by a 3-1 win over Hot Springs on Tuesday night.

“We got to switch up rotations. We kind of started out with pretty tough tournaments and we ran into some really good teams,” Spearfish head coach Shelbie Richards said. “I think we just kind of found the right rotation after that, down in Gillette, and that's kind of been successful for us ever since.

“They’ve just been playing together as a team, and we are lucky enough that we only play with seven usually in our rotation. We've really gotten to know each other, and just keeping that ‘next ball’ mentality has really been a big thing for our team.”

The Spartans seemed to find their rotation while competing in the Gillette Invite on Sept. 6. While the girls lost their first match in the two-day tournament to Douglas (Wyo.) 2-1, the Spartans would bounce back to defeat Cheyenne Central (Wyo.) 2-0 and never looked back.

In finding their rotation, the Spartans would go on to win every match in dominant fashion with no match going five sets nor tournament play matches going three sets.

To start the year, the Spartans opened up the 2024 season at the Huron Invitational on Aug. 31 winning their first match of the season 2-0 over the Mitchell Kernels. The Spartans would then fall to Brookings, Dell Rapids and Sioux Falls Lincoln to finish the tournament 1-3.

In between the Huron and Gillette tournaments, the Spartans traveled to Hill City for a matchup falling 3-1 for the Spartans' other loss on the season.

Now that the Spartans have managed to figure out their go-to crew, the girls are ready to see how they’ll fare against those East River teams as the Spartans and Sturgis Scoopers host the East-West Tournament this Friday and Saturday.

Spearfish's Avery Kirk (11) delivers a hit during the Spartans match against Mahpíya L��°ta on Friday night in Spearfish.

Heading into this weekend’s matchup, senior Avery Kirk never anticipated the Spartans would have won 18 straight.

“I’m not gonna lie, I really was not expecting the season to go like this. And it feels great. It really does,” Kirk said. “All of our hard work is starting to pay off, and this helps us keep setting our goals higher and keep pushing for the next thing.”

While the Spartans have won 18 in a row, Richards and Kirk both said the competition has largely been against Class A schools in the area whereas in this weekend’s tournament Spearfish will face some of the Class AA teams they expect to see at state.

“I'm excited because we've been playing the A schools, and it's been good. But also, when we go to state, it's going to be a lot of the AA and the East River teams,” Kirk said. “So I think it's going to help us, and it's going to show us what the speed is like, from that side of the state.”

This year the Spartans haven’t traveled as much as in years past. Making just two trips East River for the Huron Invite and a triangular in Mitchell.

The Spartans said they’re grateful that they have been able to travel less, stay closer to home and sleep in their own beds. But that has come with the cost of not having competed more of the Class AA squads.

Spearfish's Adelyn Bouman (3) digs out a ball during the Spartans match against Mahpíya L��°ta on Friday night in Spearfish.

This weekend’s tournament will feature East River schools: Brookings, Yankton, Watertown, Brandon Valley and Harrisburg against West River schools: Rapid City Stevens, Rapid City Central, Sturgis and Douglas in addition to the Spartans.

Harrisburg is currently the top-seeded team in AA with an 19-0 record this season and having won 66 straight matches dating back to Oct. 4, 2022.

“I think that my expectation is four out of five. With giving it you're all against Harrisburg,” Richards said. “I think anything can happen at any night. And if you reflect back to last year, we had a really good set with them, and definitely don't want to go and be discouraged but the reality is, they're on their 66th win of their volleyball program. So just making sure we hold our expectations high and just move on to the next ball, because we're going to see swings, blocks, some digs that we haven't been seeing.”

With roughly two weeks left in the regular season, the Spartans are looking to increase their power point standing in hopes of not only hosting a SoDak 16 match but to qualify at the state tournament.

The Spartans are using this weekend’s tournament to gauge where they’re at heading into the final stretch of the season.

Spearfish's head coach Shelbie Richards watches the Spartans match against Mahpíya L��°ta on Friday night in Spearfish.

“It's massive,” Richards said of this weekend’s tournament. “We don't talk about it a lot. We don't want to change anything that we're currently doing, but it's been super fun, just like we've been talking in practice. We can't overlook anybody, but we've definitely kind of changed our practices for forward thinking to make sure we're playing clean and doing when we get to that situation. 

“These games, obviously, with A schools, they're good wins for us, but power point wise, they're killing us in our schedule. So we just have to make sure that we take those wins in the double A teams the rest, and make sure we're getting the job done.”

The Spartans first match in the East-West Tournament is against Brookings, which defeated Spearfish 2-0 at the Huron Invite back on Aug. 31.

“We’re definitely not the same team,” Kirk said of playing the Bobcats again. “I think it helps us, because you know we have the desire and the urge to win. So I think we're going to come out strong and hopefully come out with the win.”