BUTTE — At the end of the 2023 volleyball season, then-senior-year outside hitter at Montana Tech Alexis Umland was undecided about whether she wanted to use her extra Covid season and return as a fifth-year student, as Maureen Jessop and McKenna Kaelber had done this season.
“I kind of had to think about it,” said Umland, a product of the Missoula Sentinel. “But at the end of the day, I thought, ‘I don’t want to regret not coming back,’ and I’m really glad I did.”
“Of course we’ve lost a lot of key players, but I think we’ve always had a really great squad and a lot of people ready to step in.”
She decided to lead by example and return to the team for one final season. And during her time at Tech, the Orediggers have enjoyed many sustained successes, including a No. 21 ranking in this year’s preseason Top 25 Coaches poll, giving Tech 22 consecutive years of ranking.
That run dates back to the 2021 season, but Tech head coach Brian Solomon — now in his 13th season coaching the Orediggers — attributed Tech’s evolution into a consistent top-25 program to the foundation the players laid years ago, pointing specifically to his 2016 team that made it to the national tournament.
“As the program graduates players and we get new ones, they move on and build on the success we had, like in 2016,” Solomon said. “That was a hard-won success. It gave us the opportunity to learn what it means to be successful and how much work it takes to get there.”
And 2023 was another memorable season, with Tech emerging as Frontier Conference regular-season champions for the second consecutive year, qualifying for the national tournament without a confirmed berth, and then advancing to the finals in Sioux City, Iowa, a year after being eliminated in the first round.
But then Tech failed to make it past the group stage and the Orediggers last made it to the round of 16 in the 2017 season.
For Umland and the other four Tech graduates, it’s clear this season that they have one last chance to end that drought. They’re off to a promising start after winning 3-0 last weekend at the Big Sky Volleyball Challenge hosted by Tech.
“It’s my last year, I have nothing to lose, so I’m just going to give it my all on the court,” said veteran middle blocker Olivia LaBeau. “I want to be a good team leader and just do my best. We have some good goals to pursue. And we hope to achieve them.”
Umland said: “One game at a time. One practice at a time. We focus on what we need to do. And just work on it. We know that if we work hard at everything we do, the rest will come naturally.”
The Orediggers travel to the Bellevue University Tournament in Nebraska this weekend and will compete in the SAGU Tournament in Waxachie, Texas the following weekend. Tech opens conference play at home against Rocky Mountain College on Sept. 13.
