FREMONT — After dictating the pace of their district semifinal win over Oakridge the day before, the Montague Wildcats found that task harder to accomplish against top seed, 2025 state semifinalist and West Michigan Conference Lakes co-champion Fremont Thursday.
The Packers controlled much of the district final match and held off every Wildcat rally, ending Montague's season with a 25-19, 25-19, 25-15 district championship win.
Fremont wasted no time showing that it could keep the Wildcats (10-28-5) off balance, scoring a point on a Montague communication error to start the game. Montague responded with the next four points and kept things close most of game one, which was unevenly played by each team; both sides scored several early points for the other with errors.
Eventually, Fremont began getting things going, and the Wildcats were unable to keep up. A pair of Fremont aces from Railee Durham, either of which seemed to be playable but dropped between Montague defenders, helped the Packers jump ahead 17-12. Montague got as close as 22-19 late in that game before Fremont pulled away.
The Packers led the rest of the way, and Montague coach Gretchen Schneider said Fremont's ability to keep the Wildcats off balance squared with how the Packers played them in the regular season as well, even though Montague came closer to beating them than any other WMC Lakes team prior to the conference tournament. The Wildcats took Fremont to five games in September, a performance she felt coming into Thursday that her team was capable of replicating.
"They definitely set the pace," Schneider said. "Every time we've played them, they've set the pace. They're very quick. They serve hard, and they're very strategic in their serves. They can find a hole, and they hit it consistently."
Montague fell behind early in game two, though the 'Cats did make a couple of pushes to try to tie it up. Layla Denhof had a serving run to cut an 11-4 deficit to 11-9 before Fremont responded with the next three points. Montague got it as close as one point, 17-16, but a net violation ended that run and sparked another short run by the Packers.
In game three, Schneider said, the team's "fuse sizzled out." Fremont maintained a lead of 2-3 points for about half the game, then took full command, going up by double digits at 23-13 before finishing things off.
"It's that stinking pendulum," Schneider chuckled, referring to volleyball being a game of momentum. "It swings this way, and then all of a sudden it starts coming back (the other) way, and it didn't stay on our side very long, unfortunately. The pendulum kept heading over to the other side too quickly. I did like the way that we stayed in step with them up until the third set."
Schneider added that the team became more mentally resilient on the court over the course of the season, praising their late-season efforts, which included jumping up into a fourth-place tie in the final WMC Lakes standings with their performance in the league tournament.
"They were able to find it, and it was the 'it' that we were talking about inside," Schneider said, motioning towards her heart. "You've got to find it. You've got to want it. It's something that is intangible. We can't see it, but it's there. I think that they found it towards the end of the season."
The end of the Wildcats' season meant the end of the careers of several of Montague's top players, including Annelyse Schneider - the coach's niece - and Hallie VanTuyl, who had nine kills each to lead the Montague offense. Fellow starter Ella Evans is also set to graduate.
Schneider and VanTuyl were Montague's tallest players in addition to being strong offensive threats. The Wildcats will likely have to play a different style next year and rely more on a speedy, athletic core that will include Ellee Smith, Layla Denhof, Ava Dean and Kaitlyn Leatherman, among others.
"I think our focus will be working on scrappiness, being very scrappy, and to strengthen our defensive game so that it'll be hard to score on us," Schneider said. "With the speed and the talent - my sophomores coming up are very talented and very quick - they've been working the last couple of years on being tougher servers and being smart servers.
"We were a little late to the ball game (on that) with these kids, my seniors going out, but we've been grooming these girls for the last three years. Now I think we're going to start seeing the benefits."
Denhof and Dean led Montague in service points Thursday with 10 apiece. Dean also had a team-high 28 digs, and Denhof had 22 assists. The duo combined for five aces, three by Denhof. Schneider had two blocks.
