Sluggish start

Carson High’s volleyball team paid the price for getting behind early.

Reno controlled the action most of the night en route to a 25-16, 25-18 and 27-25 win over the Senators in a Northern 4A crossover match at Morse Burley Gym on Tuesday.

“It took us a while to get going tonight,” coach Robert Maw said. “We didn’t have a preseason tournament like we normally have, we were missing a starter (Ku’ulei Haupu) and Natalie (Anderson) is just coming back from an injury.

“Overall, it was better than I expected, but I was disappointed with our lack of composure, however. These girls have played enough volleyball. That shouldn’t happen.”

Carson returns to action Friday afternoon in Las Vegas for a two-day tournament.

“It will be nice to get down there and get some hits in, and get some chemistry going,” Maw said.

The third game had to be the most frustrating for the Senators, who were one point away from winning the third set.

Leading 24-21 after a Dajarrah Navarro dink, Abbey Paulson served one into the net. A net violation called on Shea DeJoseph and a hitting error by Stefanie Schmidt enabled Reno to tie the set at 24-all.

After a hitting error by Reno put CHS one point away from a win, Reno scored three straight on a kill by Parker Buddy, a quick-set kill by Kaitlyn Biassou and a CHS error to take the set and complete the sweep.

Serving, or lack thereof, played a major role in all three losses.

Schmidt missed a serve at 18-all, but a kill by Navarro, two aces by Anderson and a tip by Abigail Pradere gave Carson a 22-19 lead.

Anderson followed with a service error to make it 22-20.

A kill by Navarro made it 23-20, but Camryn Quilling misfired on a serve that made it 23-21. All told, Carson had five service errors in the final set and 13 on the night.

“We shouldn’t be missing back-to-back serves which we did three times that last game,” Maw said.

Maw lauded the efforts of Anderson and Navarro in the last game. Unofficially, Navaro had five of her 11 kills in the final set, and Anderson, who played right side instead of setter, had all four of her kills in the final set plus three aces.

“I wanted to work her in (slowly) because of her ankle,” Maw said. “We’ll see how she feels after tonight. Things went well when we played her up front.

Navarro got most of her points in the final game on change-up shots. Instead of trying to pound the ball, she found the openings in Reno’s defense.

“That was good volleyball IQ on her part,” Maw said. “She did something different. She has improved a lot since last year.”

Carson led very briefly in the first two sets.

The Huskies went on an 12-3 run to open up a 21-9 lead in the first set thanks to the net play of Buddy and Mia Wilmer. Carson responded with a 7-1 run of its own, as Carissa Wiley had two kills and Cheyanne Prado-Holland served up an ace.

The second set was tied at 15 before Reno scored five of the next seven points for a 20-17 lead. Carson cut it to 20-18 when Reno had a ballhandling error. The Huskies scored the next five points to take a 2-0 lead in the match. Three of the points came on Carson errors and Buddy had two more kills.