The Calvary Lutheran volleyball team may have suffered a loss Tuesday night, but the Lady Lions got a nice consolation prize.
"It seemed like our defense came together tonight," Calvary coach Nikki Kueck said after Calvary's 25-17, 26-24 loss to Montgomery County at the Calvary gym. "We haven't had a game where we've had the blockers blocking and the passers passing. We still had some minor errors, but for the most part, it seems like it's coming together."
It's a case of hard work paying off.
"We're starting to see the effects of all of our practice regarding the defense," Kueck said. "It's a good time to see those effects. Everyone's playing much better together."
However, the Lady Lions were done in by a familiar bugaboo in the first game, as they got off to a slow start - they were aced on three of the first four serves by the Lady Wildcats.
They fell behind 5-0 and never really hit their stride until the early stages of the second game.
"I think the girls were a little intimidated from the beginning," Kueck said. "Not so much that they thought we could get beaten by (Montgomery County), but they knew (Montgomery County) had beaten Tolton and we lost to Tolton. ... I knew we could do well against them, and it showed in the second set.
"Sometimes we start off slow and sluggish. Then toward the end of the first set they start to wake up, but sadly it's usually too little, too late, because the other team has that momentum going and we can't get caught back up. But we do take that momentum into the second set."
The second set featured a whopping 13 ties. The 12th came at 22 on a serving error by Montgomery County - one of eight in the set by the Lady Wildcats. But the Lady Lions gave it right back on their second straight serving error.
"It was back and forth, but we had a couple big mistakes there at the end," Kueck said. "Two big missed serves in the final five points hurt us. We can't have that at the tail end of a game. We've got to fix those mistakes."
Calvary tied it one last time at 24 on a kill by Jessica Stark, but Montgomery County got a kill for a sideout and another kill to end it.
Kyra Wiegers paced Calvary with three kills, while Brooke Rollins had two. Rebecca Thompson had three assists, Kara Bernskoetter had two aces and Katie Goodin had one block.
Calvary, which fell to 13-9-1 with the loss, plays against Saturday at the Eugene Tournament.