By John Rittenhouse
A slumping Hills-Beaver Creek volleyball team dropped its fifth consecutive match in Rock Rapids, Iowa, Tuesday.
Playing the Central Lyon Lions on their home floor, H-BC was unable to end the skid after dropping three straight games while being outscored 45-21.
The Lions prevailed 15-7 in Game 1 before nipping the Patriots 15-13 during a competitive second game.
H-BC was unable to stay with the Lions in the third game as CL rolled to a convincing 15-1 win.
Although the Patriots did receive some spirited performances by team members, a short-handed H-BC squad struggled receiving serves in the match.
In the mind of Patriot coach Nicole Fey, that led to the team's undoing.
"We did not serve receive well again. We also had some girls out who were injured or sick, and we didn't do a good job adjusting to our new rotation," she said.
Fey cited Tonya Leenderts and Melinda Sandstede for playing hard throughout the match.
Erin Boeve played well at the net by registering a team-high 10 kills.
The 2-6 Patriots will try to snap their losing skid when they play two road matches.
H-BC plays Mountain Lake-Butterfield-Odin in their second Red Rock Conference test of the year tonight before playing a league match in Adrian Tuesday.