ONEKAMA — It’s never ideal to be on the wrong end of a sweep, but it’s better timed earlier than later over the course of a season.
Onekama struggled to keep up with Mesick in its home opener on Thursday night, falling 25-15, 25-19, 25-12, but has plenty of time improve according to coach Sherri Slater.
“It’s early, and we’re only going to go up from here,” she said of the Portagers’ first dual match of the year. “Wins are great, but like I’ve said before, what I really want to see is a progression as the season goes on.
“We’re going on and up from here.”
Onekama’s Anna Brown led her team with three kills to go with three assists, while Quinn LaMont had a team-high eight assists.
The Portagers had a hard time, however, with limiting the damage defensively.
“I think aside from the girls being nervous because of this being our first home game, we had a lot of problems with our first passes,” Slater said. “If you have that problem, that pretty much takes you out of your system.
“You’re sending all kinds of free balls over and they can take advantage and hit it back down on us,” she added. “That’s pretty much the summation of this whole match.
“We struggled with serve receive. If you can’t get that first pass up to the setter, how can you attack?”
The Portagers played point for point to a 5-5 tie in the first set, before Morgan Riojas helped Mesick separate a bit with a five-point service run. The Bulldogs’ Hailey Maksymowski and Brittany Porter each served up strings of four down the stretch for the comfortable victory.
