WARDEN — Warden outside hitter Amanda Contreras stepped back from the net on one of those balls headed for no-man’s land, swung her left arm like a Rafael Nadal forehand, throwing a topspin dart back at the Wahluke defense during Thursday night’s SCAC East match.

As it turned out, it came in hot and the Warriors defense wasn’t able to respond on a ball down the line. It was just that kind of night for the senior-laden Cougars (3-2, 3-2 SCAC East), who won in three sets, 25-17, 25-21, 25-14.

The young Warriors (1-5, 1-4 SCAC East) have just two seniors and led through much of the second set before giving way on a wave of emotion on the momentum shift and didn’t have much in the end when everything was going the Cougars’ way.

“I thought the front row played well tonight. We’ve improved and getting a lot stronger,” said Contreras, who finished with six kills and three blocks. “This team has seven seniors and we’re close, like a family. We’re starting to see the hard work pay off.”

The thing about young teams, Wahluke coach Everado Corrales said, once the momentum shifts, it’s hard to get it back.

“Our season has been up and down. The first couple of games tonight, especially the second one, the girls seemed like they were in sync. But we gave up a couple of quick points and that dropped them a bit,” the Warriors coach said. “It’s a young team and they haven’t played together a whole lot. We’re striving for greatness and pushing these girls to the next level.”

Where the Warriors have not played much together, most of the Cougars have been playing since they were freshmen.

“We’ve all played together four years, so we know each other really well,” said outside hitter Jizelle Pruneda, who had five kills. “We know how to work together and how to get the best out of each other.”

Wahluke took a 15-13 lead in the second set when Karen Veloz put a ball down to give the Warriors a little boost when they needed it most. But they struggled from the service line with six net balls on the night. The service errors were real momentum killers in the end, and the Cougars regained control of the second set to win 25-21. Warden blew out to a 14-3 lead in the third and ran it out for the SCAC win at home.

“We have seven seniors on the team and they played like it tonight,” Warden coach Elijah Timofeyev said. “It’s still early in the season and we’re trying players at new positions and running new packages to see what we can do. I saw a lot of good things tonight. Our defense played a lot better than we have in the last couple of games.”

Warden travels to River View Sept. 26. Wahluke travels to Kiona-Benton Sept. 26.