BILLINGS — BriElla Becker woke up on Saturday morning at last year’s state volleyball tournament feeling angry and frustrated, her disappointment from the night before still lingering, if not intensified.
The hours that had passed from the time that Becker and her Denton-Geyser-Stanford-Geraldine teammates had lost out of the tournament late Friday night did not make the season-ending loss to White Sulphur Springs any easier to swallow.
No matter how good the Bearcats thought their season was, it wasn’t what they hoped it was going to be.
Instead of playing on the final day of the tournament for a guaranteed trophy — which was the major team goal of the season — the Bearcats were left simply being spectators in Bozeman’s Brick Breeden Fieldhouse.
Becker had a vision of what that Saturday morning was supposed to be like. A bus ride from the hotel to the Montana State campus, uniforms in hand, the giddiness knowing that a third-place, second-place or even championship trophy would be riding with them on the trip home a few hours later.
That loss to White Sulphur Springs changed those plans.
“You end up having to go back to the hotel at 11 o'clock at night knowing that you’re done, your season’s done, that you don’t get to wake up the next morning and play some more volleyball,” said Becker, now a junior. “It’s definitely a lot to take in. It’s not very fun, I’ll be honest.”
Maybe the season’s ending wasn’t fun. But getting to that point is still a point of pride for the Bearcats, who finished with a 22-5 record last season, won their first district title for the co-op and finished second at divisionals.
And it’s a point of motivation this season.
“Their goal is to get back to the Brick, they want to play in the Brick again, you know?” Bearcats coach Connie Becker said. “They set that from the get-go.”
Like a lot of the teams in the Class C state-tournament field last season, the Bearcats’ roster was heavy with underclassmen, particularly players who had big roles on the team. With about a month remaining in the regular season, this year’s Bearcats are undefeated and lead the 7C.
Four players — team captains BriElla Becker and Tycee McVicker, and twins Emma and Ella Smith — return with the most experience, and another four players were on the roster for the tournament.
BriElla Becker, Connie’s daughter, is an all-rotation outside hitter, while McVicker has moved from her libero position of last year to the outside, as well.
It’s been an adjustment for McVicker, but the senior has adapted well, using her volleyball acumen and experience as a libero to help her find open spaces in an opponent’s defense.
Adapting has been a theme of sorts for the Bearcats. They practice at all four schools, one school a week, sometimes meaning at times a 45-minute bus ride for some of the players. Nine of the players in the program are from Stanford, three from Geyser, four from Denton and five from Geraldine.
Geraldine’s co-op with Highwood ended in 2022, and with nowhere else to go, players joined the Denton-Geyser-Stanford co-op. The Geraldine name was added to the D-G-S label the following year.
Adding to the problematic logistics was a successful school bond at Stanford, which kept the school’s gymnasium off limits to the team for most of the summer due to ongoing projects.
For instance, the weight room was moved to the bus barn. Sometimes at morning lifts, with the overhead doors open, weights would be so cold the players would put sweatshirts over their hands to grab the dumbbells, coach Becker said. The Stanford gym just recently became available to the team.
Through it all — long practice days, the feeling of constantly being on the road — the Bearcats have kept their focus on their goal, Connie Becker said.
“They have a lot of aspirations, things they’re trying to do,” said Becker, who has been with the program through its various co-op stages for 15 years. “They’ve got that fire in their belly, and at some point you just have to kind of turn that loose a little. They’re competitive, and that’s a good thing.”
Like BriElla Becker, McVicker has that Saturday night seared into her memory. Also like Becker, McVicker and the rest of the Bearcats hope to be able to replace that recollection with a better one this time around.
“Just watching that atmosphere was insane,” McVicker said, “and I really wish we could have been a part of it. That’s what’s motivating us and that’s where we want to be.”
