By John Rittenhouse
The Hills-Beaver Creek girls came up on the short end of a five-game volleyball battle in Hills Tuesday.
Playing host to Edgerton in a Red Rock Conference match, it looked like the Patriots might recover from a slow start by rallying to win Games 3 and 4 and knotting the match at two wins each.
The Patriots, however, lost the momentum in the fifth game and came up on the short end of a 3-2 tally when the Flying Dutchmen took the game by a 15-6 margin.
The night was filled with ups and downs for the Patriots, who slipped to 4-3 in league play with the loss.
"We got off to a slow start in the first game before coming back to lose a close game," said Patriot coach Nicole Fey.
"Game 2 was tight the whole way, but they pulled it out in the end. We started out better in Games 3 and 4 and won them, but we lost it again in the fifth game."
The key to victory for Edgerton was that it came up big in the end to post 15-13 and 17-15 wins in the first two games.
H-BC bounced back to even the match at two games each with 15-10 and 15-9 wins in the third and fourth tilts. Edgerton won the war with its nine-point victory in Game 5.
Inconsistency and some blocking problems hampered the Patriots in the match.
"We have a really good volleyball team this year," Fey offered. "The problem is we're playing very inconsistently. Another thing that hurt us is that we were a step or two slow with our blocks in this match."
Erin Boeve didn't have any trouble finding holes in EdgertonÕs defense as she registered 36 kills during the match.
Brittney Olson hit the floor to produce 18 digs. Tonya Leenderts had 17 digs and 15 service points for the Patriots.
The 6-9 H-BC squad plays road matches against Westbrook-Walnut Grove and Russell-Tyler-Ruthton tonight and Monday before hosting Southwest Star Concept Tuesday.