Photo by Jake Przytarski Canby’s Charlotte Wright hits the ball over the net during their match against MCC on Monday. The Lancers defeated the Rebels 3-0.

CANBY – The Canby Lancers utilized fast starts in all three sets of their home matchup against the Murray County Central Rebels to fuel them to a straight sets victory on Monday. Lancers head coach Jenai Wright acknowledged the importance of the fast starts as a key component to their win, but believes maintaining that energy is something that her team still needs to work on going forward.

“I think it really helped,” said Wright. “Without the quick starts I think MCC could’ve got back in it. “We were getting a little complacent and I think we need to work on that and go for the end of the set, you gotta go for it.”

Although the Rebels would be the ones to score the first two points of the opening set, it was the Lancers that seized momentum early as they went on a nine serve rally that put them ahead 9-2. From there, the Rebels battled to stay within reach of the surging Lancers – narrowing the score to 13-9 midway through – but Canby remained in control in the latter stages of the set to pull off an opening 25-21 set win to take a 1-0 lead.

The Lancers once again got off to a hot start to score the initial two points in the next set, but the Rebels charged back to tie it at three. Following the tie, the Lancers took hold of the lead and refused to relinquish it as they earned a second consecutive set victory by a score of 25-19.

In the third and final set, the Lancers continued their trend of starting strong out of the gate, but this time the Rebels stuck around and made it harder for the Lancers to generate the long rallies that they had grown accustomed to in the previous two sets. Halfway through, the two teams were knotted up at 10 apiece with neither team giving up an inch in a closely contested set. After trailing for most of the contest, it was the Rebels who found themselves ahead soon after, as they put together a strong rally to go ahead 14-12. Unfortunately, the momentum wouldn’t long as the Lancers were able to regroup and take the third set 25-22 and the match 3-0.

Helping lead the Lancers to victory on Monday were Brooke Nelson and Cammie Weber, who finished with seven and eight kills, respectively. Senior Morgan Cleveland led her team in aces in the match with six on the evening, and was second in set assists with a total of 14, behind Rachel Harding’s team-leading 15.

The Lancers will be right back in action today to take on conference foe Lakeview in another home matchup. Just like in Monday’s victory, Coach Wright wants her team to approach the match one set at a time.

We still have a lot to work on,” said Wright. “I think it’s early on yet in the season but for Lakeview again (we have to take things) one set at a time.”

The Murray County Central Rebels will take the court for their next matchup on Thursday when they take on Westbook-Walnut Grove hoping to move to 3-1 on the season. Coach Kate DeLong will be focusing on improving her team’s defense leading up to Thursday’s contest.

“We need to put more blocks down,” said DeLong. “We get lots of hands on balls but not any stuffs so we really need to be putting that ball down, especially against some tough hitting teams we’re going to see this year. We’ve got the potential, we’ve got good blockers, it’s just making that connection and playing smart.”