AKRON – It was a stellar night on the court for one team while the other team would rather just move on as quickly as possible as the volleyball season officially started as Tippecanoe Valley hosted Wawasee Tuesday night. The Lady Vikings controlled the tempo and momentum from the start and rolled to a 3-0 sweep of the Lady Warriors.

“I told the girls that this is their year and they need to make it what they want it to be,” stated Valley head coach Mallory Eaton. “Whatever you’re expectations are, you’re going to meet those. So, if you decide that you’re going to win every competition you come to and just play with passion, you’re going to be successful.

“The biggest thing to me was that tonight was not about one person, it was very balanced. Everybody contributed. When everybody has a job and does their part, it’s just a beautiful thing.”

Eaton’s team was clicking from the start as Emily Peterson served five striaght points to give Valley an early 6-0 lead. Feeding off the hot start from Peterson was Abby Betten.

Betten, a junior, could do no wrong in that first game and would finish with 13 kills on the night. Wawasee found some momentum late in the game, but it was too little, too late as Valley took a 25-16 decision.

“It’s not even her power,” Eaton said of Betten. “Abby is an all around leader. She provides that vocal leadership, she’s come a long way. She used to be a JV kid that was kind of just ‘there’ and then she decided that she was going to lead this team, and she’s contagious. It helps to have a cannon of an arm but she’s constantly pushing others and asking them to do their best and it shows.”

The Lady Warriors seemed to have things in order in the second game, taking their first lead at 10-9. That would prove to be their only lead of the night as Valley continued to put together runs and build off its own momentum to win the second game 25-21. Wawasee, on the other hand, played the role of an inexperienced team learning a new system.

From the sidelines it seemed as if communcation was the problem. When asked after the game what the problem was, Wawasee head coach Chris Cole confirmed those thoughts, “Communication.”

Cole continued, “My big stress is that we need to communicate first, pass second and then execute. If we don’t communicate first, we run around like a bunch of rats with our heads cut off. I think they got a little uptight, it’s a new system for them. When they figure out what they need to do then they’ll be able to settle down, play a calmer match and we’ll be a much better team.”

There were flashes of talent on Wawasee’s side of the net Tuesday night, but the flashes were far from consistent as was noticed most in the third game, a 25-13 Valley win, where Wawasee had only five players on the court at one point.

On Thursday Wawasee (0-1) will host while Valley (1-0) will play host to West Noble.

The Wawasee JV team had a much better night on the court. The JV ladies swept Valley 25-18, 25-19, 15-10 to claim victory.