BURBANK - A young team will experience peaks and valleys throughout a season and the Warden Cougars volleyball team is in the midst of the latter.

The Cougars lost their second straight match Tuesday at Columbia High School (16-25, 25-21, 18-25, 19-25).

Warden was able to take the second game behind a strong performance from senior middle hitter Alicia Pruneda. Pruneda started the Cougar rally with an 8/8 serving performance which helped build a 15-5 lead.

"With that momentum we were able to put some good plays together in a row," head coach Dennis Treat said. "We were probably up about 13-3 before Columbia (Burbank) regrouped and started playing again."

Warden sits in fifth place of the South Central Athletic Conference East division with a 2-3 conference record and a 2-4 overall record.

After two straight matches against Connell and Columbia, the top two teams in the division, Treat hopes his team can learn from the experience and challenge the better teams later in the season.

"We play each of those teams again and we're going to look at some of the things we can do different and do better and see if we can't knock one or both of those teams off," he said

Outside hitter Shania Kisler led the team with 20 digs while adding six kills on offense. Libero Ashley Martinez recorded 15 digs and setter Emily Pruneda contributed 10 digs and was 9/9 serving.

The Cougars will look to get back in the win column against Royal High School 7 p.m. tonight at home.

"Royal will be a key match for us because if we win that one we'll be 3-3 in league and we'll have a jump on Royal and Wahluke and River View at least for that four spot for the playoffs," Treat said. "If we can win that then hopefully we can spring board into the second half of the schedule."