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

SLAYTON – The Canby volleyball team continued its outstanding start to the regular season on Monday by defeating non-conference opponent Murray County Central in straight sets to extend their unbeaten streak to four games.

Canby coach Jenai Wright was especially pleased with the composure shown by her team, which had been lacking at times in their previous three matches.

“Well we really needed to come out with a little bit more composure,” said Wright. “I think our last few games we weren’t finishing how we wanted. Yes, they were wins, but we want to come out with more finesse and more composure and I think for the most part we did that.”

MCC coach Kate DeLong knew Monday’s match would be a challenge but said there are a lot of things that her team can take from the Lancers’ performance in seeing how dominant teams win games.

“I think we went in knowing that it was going to be a tough game,” said DeLong. “There was going to be a fast pace of play and we knew that we would have to match Canby step-for-step and we fell a little bit short of that, but I think we’re going to be able to take away a lot of memorable things. Things to pick up on to see what dominant teams are doing to win games and I think we can take that away and start applying that to our game.”

Canby was able to set the tone in the opening set of Monday’s matchup by shaking off a quick 2-0 deficit and proceeding to go on a 13-3 run that gave them a 13-5 lead. The Rebels were able to keep pace down the stretch, but it was not enough to win the set as the Lancers held on in a 25-16 final.

After a dominant 25-12 win in Set 2 for the Lancers, the Rebels battled hard in the third and final set to keep the match alive and remained step for step early on with the score at 5-4. The Lancers would quickly recover and retain control by going on a 14-4 run that made it 19-8. MCC would make things interesting late by coming within four points of tying the set at 23-19, but the Lancers proved to be too much to handle with back-to-back points to win the set 25-19, and the match 3-0.

Canby (4-0) will return to its home court today when they host Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg at 7:15 p.m. Wright plans to focus on the fundamentals in practice in order to continue their impressive start to the season.

“We’re just going to keep focusing on defense, hard-serving and just all around passing,” said Wright. “That’s what we need to do and I think that’s going to make us an even better team.”

The Rebels (1-2) will be back in action on Thursday when they travel to Pipestone to take on the Arrows at 7:15 p.m. DeLong hopes to use Monday’s loss as a learning experience in order to help shore up a few areas of their game.

“We need to work on being aggressive with our offense, running the pace of play on our side and not sitting on our heels waiting for another team to come at us,” said DeLong. “I think tonight’s a tough loss, but again it’s a really good learning experience for us.”

Canby 3, MCC 0

Canby 25 25 25

MCC 16 12 19

KILLS: Canby (B.Nelson 10, G. Harding 7, Wright 6); MCC (Hoekman 8, Rohrer 4, Boock 3).

DIGS: Canby (Hunt 17, Harding , B. Nelson 6); MCC (Christensen 11, Kluis 10, Schmitz 6).

SERVING (Aces): Canby (G. Harding 17-19 (1), R. Harding 15-17 (2), P. Nelson 11-12 (2)); MCC (Graphenteen 11-12 (1), Hoekman 4-6 (2)).

SET ASSISTS: Canby (R. Harding 20, P. Nelson 13); MCC (Graphenteen 9, Schmitz 4).

BLOCKS: Canby (Wente 4, Wright 1, B. Nelson 1); MCC (Rohrer 3).