MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Christian Academy Lions (1-0) volleyball team began their season at home against the Wilson Creek Devils (0-1) Tuesday evening. After a hard-fought match, the Lions won 3-0 against the Devils. 

“I thought everything went pretty good,” said Lions Head Coach Dean Spurbeck. “I thought the girls played well, kind of got some jitters out, so that’s helpful and trying a few new things, but now we just have to keep improving on what we’re doing.” 

The game started tight with the Lions claiming an early lead, but the Devils kept the score close. Both teams traded leads before eventually MLCA caught stride to claim a 25-18 victory in the first set.

In the second set, Wilson Creek came out strong as they claimed the lead early and much like the first set, both teams battled hard, trading the lead until they tied at 21. From here, MLCA found their stride once again to rally for a 25-22 victory. 

The Lions maintained their momentum from the second set as they went into the third set. MLCA gained a sizable lead over Wilson Creek in the third set to win 25-14 and claim a 3-0 victory to kick off their season. 

“(This game) showed me some spots that we need to work on a little bit and so we’ll get on them right away and go from there,” said Spurbeck. 

Starting the season against a tough league opponent was a bit of a daunting task but was a good way to break into the season, he said. Both teams entered the game with early season jitters and coming out of this game helped warm up all the players for how they’ll need to compete this season. 

“It’s kind of one of those things like, ‘Okay let’s go do it,’ and we’ll make changes as we go,” said the coach. “They did well.” 

Spurbeck said the Lions had great service throughout the entire match and did well in spreading the ball around on sets more than normal. Throughout the game he saw the players picking up balls that they hadn’t gotten in the past. 

Playing the Devils highlighted many little areas of play that the coach said he is going to work on with the players as they get ready for their next matchup. As they make their way through the season, the Lions are looking to make some adjustments on offense and defense as they work to become more crisp in their playstyle. 

“You see what we did, and you can kind of see from there what we need to work on and go from there,” said Spurbeck. “You try to fix that and keep going.” 

The Devils remain on the road Thursday to face Entiat at 6:30 p.m. The Lions will continue to defend their home court as they host Odessa Thursday at 6:30 p.m. 

BOX SCORE 

WCRK: 18-22-14: 0 

MLCA: 25-25-25: 3 

    Cheyanne Dailey from the Devils bumps up the ball for one of her teammates to spike over the net against the Lions.
  

    MLCA’s Vesta Koethke keeps her eyes on the ball as she responds to a hit from her Wilson Creek opponents.
  

    Wilson Creek’s Lila Sackmann prepares to spike the ball toward the opposing MLCA team Tuesday evening.
  

    Lions player Ava Bishop leaps up to go for the kill against the Devils Tuesday evening in the home opener.
  

    Debi Horn from Wilson Creek steps up to serve the ball during Tuesday’s road game against MLCA.