The Comets were a perfect 3-0 against the competition at BCLUW High School, with wins over South Tama, Benton and Class 2A No. 14 Hudson. BCLUW, ranked 11th in 1A, improved to 6-1 overall in the team’s first competition in over a week..

“The energy was high, and especially in our own gym, we just knew how to do whatever we needed to do,” BCLUW senior setter Cassie Nason said.

BCLUW started the day with a 25-15, 25-15 win over South Tama, and held on for a 25-20, 13-25, 16-14 win over Hudson before finishing up with a 25-16, 25-16 triumph over Benton.

“All three teams that are here are tough and have a good program,” BCLUW head coach Megan Yantis said. “Coming out with three wins was a good boost of morale for the girls.”

Olivia Peters had seven kills to lead the BCLUW attack against South Tama, Virginia Kaisand adding four kills and Nason scoring three kills to go with 14 assists. Peters also had three ace serves on 7-of-8 serving, Raegan Crawford contributed two aces on 9-of-9 serving along with a team-leading six digs.

The Pirates presented a unique challenge, roaring back from their first-set loss as Yantis felt the Comets had lost some of the cohesion from the first set.

“We were just like, out of it,” Nason said of the second set. “The communication, the simple things, not playing the volleyball we know how to play. We just needed to clean it up.”

BCLUW improved in the third set but still had to go to extra points to make sure they could scuttle the Pirates for good.

“The biggest thing is taking care of the ball and it seemed like from ball one [in the second set] we were letting them pretty much do whatever they wanted to us,” Yantis added. “It felt like we had a bunch of individuals out there instead of a team, especially once they got going. So the last timeout of the second set, I told the girls that we needed to figure out how to make some momentum going into that last set.”

The Comets erupted in celebration after the final point finally dropped to the ground — it was BCLUW’s first win over a ranked team this season after another three-set match with South Hardin went the Tigers’ way on Aug. 29 at a South Hamilton triangular.

Grace Farnsworth put up 10 kills, seven digs and was 11-of-11 serving with three aces in the Hudson match; Peters added nine kills and 11 digs, Klayre Gallentine led the defense with 15 digs and Nason added 12 digs as well as distributing 23 assists to BCLUW’s attackers.

Nason has slotted in as the team’s setter following the graduation of second-team all-state selection Sydney Anderson after playing just 18 matches for last year’s state semifinalist team.

BCLUW returned its top three attackers from last season, led by the sophomore Peters who was a third-team all-stater as a freshman.

“I love setting up the big hitters,” Nason said. “They get excited, the whole team gets excited, and that adrenaline just keeps going on and on. Once our outsides get going, it’s hard to slow us down.”

The team is under new, but familiar leadership as Megan Yantis went up to the head coaching role, ascending from her assistant position under Abby Stephenson last year — Stephenson left BCLUW to take a head coaching job at Nevada, her alma mater, where she now coaches with her mother Lori.

“There’s really not that much of a hiccup,” Yantis said. “The main thing is just figuring out who among our juniors stepping up to seniors are going to take on that leadership role. Right now it isn’t always the same person, which is sometimes kind of nice in these early games, but as we go on we need to find that person that’s going to bring us back together when another team is getting runs on us.”

BCLUW has another key matchup coming up on Tuesday, as the Comets welcome ninth-ranked (1A) North Tama for an Iowa Star showdown. The Comets swept the Redhawks in last year’s meeting.

“I’m sure our nerves will get to us right away, but we’ve just got to kick down that door,” Nason said. “The adrenaline is going to be high, but it’s just another game of volleyball.”

SOUTH TAMA SHOWS IMPROVEMENT

South Tama County volleyball saw progress at Saturday’s BCLUW round-robin tournament on Saturday.

The Trojans didn’t pick up a win, but head coach Samantha Cantonwine could tell by the end of the day the Trojans were starting to figure out what it will take for them to be successful this fall.

It showed in a hard-fought, three-set battle with 2A No. 14 Hudson, where the Pirates prevailed 22-25, 25-22, 15-10.

Coming off the disappointment of a five-set loss to Montezuma at home on Thursday, Cantonwine felt even getting a set off a ranked Hudson team showed forward momentum.

“We learned a lot about ourselves after Thursday’s match,” Cantonwine said. “We were playing that match not to lose instead of playing to win. We’ve really been working on that, and I think it finally showed against Hudson that we just wanted to win, and that we were going to go out there and swing as hard as we could.”

Paisley Bro had five kills in an 11-5 run that guided the Trojans to the first-set victory over Hudson.

The Pirates went on a 9-3 run early in the second set to build a lead they would not surrender the rest of the way, though the Trojans kept swinging with a handful of kills from Macy Welsh and contributions from Mady Boriskey and Janette Cervantes.

STC also kept rallies alive with solid defense, including some diving digs from Cailey Brown.

“We actually switched our defenses [earlier in the day] against Benton, because it was just not working,” Cantonwine said. “And it worked, they were going all out, knew what they needed to pick up. That was a good switch.”

Hudson put STC in a 12-4 hole to start the third set played to 15 points, but the Trojans continued to fight, with a Bro ace and kill and a Cervantes kill to make it 14-10 before Hudson’s Vada Klunder put down the match-winning kill.

“We’ve really been working hard on trying to get good swings instead of just waiting for the other team to make an error, really wanting to earn our points,” Cantonwine said. “We’ve really switched our focus to making sure we can score in transition.”

Benton defeated STC, 25-22, 25-22, and BCLUW won 25-15, 25-15 in the Trojans’ first match of the day.

STC (2-9) have an uphill battle at 4A No. 4 Clear Creek Amana on Tuesday before returning home against Des Moines Hoover on Thursday.

“We were playing very timid in our early matches, scared to make a mistake,” Cantonwine said. “But this Hudson match, I think it got the girls excited, made them remember that they can play volleyball and it really was a redemption for us from Thursday.”