Moore heads to international tournament

Kaiah Moore is hoping when she takes to the court for Lady Bulldog volleyball in the fall, she’ll be bringing some top-level experience with her.

Next month, Moore will be one of a dozen girls competing on the Evergreen Region Volleyball Association’s High Performance team at the USA Volleyball High Performance Championships in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The Evergreen Region team is comprised of players aged 13 to 18 from Montana, Idaho and Washington, and will compete against 124 other teams from the U.S., Australia, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Moore is one of two players on the team from Montana.

The tournament runs July 18-22. Moore is finishing up fundraising for the trip, with $900 of the $1,500 goal raised so far.

She’s both excited and nervous to compete in the tournament, Moore told the Pilot.

“I’ve really never experienced this level of play before. It’s much different from just regular high school volleyball or even club volleyball,” she said. “And playing with girls that are experienced like that is super awesome. It was hard to adjust at first, but I kind of got the hang of it after the first few practices.”

Her path to the tournament started back in March, when she made it through tryouts to be one of 40 to attend a camp in May. Of those 40, 12 made the team that’s going to Florida.

To get ready for the tourney, Moore says she and her father have been devising three-times-a-week workouts.

She’s happy to put in the work, she says, especially when it’s her favorite sport.

“I just love the competitiveness. You put so much time and effort into certain things, and once you finally get that down it’s such a great feeling,” she said. “Then once you execute that in a game or tournament it’s just the greatest feeling ever.”

She’s also looking forward to gaining and sharing some volleyball wisdom.

Moore will be working with Katie Hinrichs and Jennifer Greeny, the head coaches for the Montana State University and Washington State University volleyball teams.

She says she’ll be writing down every tidbit of knowledge she can squeeze out of the experienced coaches.

“I’m excited to carry that into Bulldog volleyball,” she said.