George Leinonen photo Chassell’s Sydney Danison, left, and Dana Kinnunen go up for a kill as Hancock’s Madelyn Johnson leaps for the block Tuesday in Hancock. Chassell won in four sets.

HANCOCK — Chassell’s Kaitlyn Michaels, either as a head coach or a player, could not remember a time in the past eight years when the Panthers won a volleyball match against the Hancock Bulldogs.

That all changed on Tuesday.

Chassell took advantage of an inconsistent Hancock squad to win in four sets, 25-12, 22-25, 25-22, 25-14, for a nonconference victory in Hancock.

“I think the mentality has changed for us, finally,” Michaels said. “I don’t think we’ve ever come out in a match with a tough school where we had been confident, and today, we came out confident. As soon as we got the first five points under our belt, the mood totally changed. They were ready and knew what to do.”

The confidence showed in the first set, as Chassell jumped out to a 9-1 lead before Sophie Huhta would later make it 20-5 on an ace. Huhta led the Panthers with 11 kills and four blocks, while Milly Allen added 21 assists, five aces and five digs.

“We were talking to each other and covering for each other,” Michaels said. “Things that we always kind of do, but they’re sometimes a half-second late. But they just knew instinctually, that we had to talk, listen and do this and hit the ball hard. That’s what I saw in the first set.”

For as organized and efficient as Chassell was, Hancock was the opposite. Hancock’s miscues put them in a deficit they could not recover from in the opening set.

“I feel like it was a lot of our own mistakes,” Hancock head coach Sarah Grieger said. “We had a lot of hitting errors and a lot of serving errors. I don’t know if it was just first-game jitters or what.”

But the team Grieger is accustomed to seeing every day in practice soon returned; Hancock and Chassell put on a competitive game in the second set, with long volleys and a set that was tied on four separate occasions.

“Chassell and ourselves were being really scrappy and not letting the ball touch the ground,” Grieger said.

After Allen gave Chassell a 22-20 lead, the Bulldogs scored the set’s final five points, capped by an ace from Clariane Alkuino, who led the Bulldogs with eight kills. Emma Almquist added five kills for Hancock.

“(Clariane’s) powerful hits are such a mood-booster for the whole team,” Grieger said. “It feels so good to get those big hits in there and big swings. I know she’s working on controlling that, too… The hits that were in were awesome and really pumped the team up.”

Hancock continued to ride its momentum into the third, where they took a 21-15 lead, forcing Michaels to call a timeout. The break served as the turning point in the set and match; Chassell closed the set on a 10-1 run, with Leah Pennala recording three aces for the final points of a 25-22 Chassell victory.

“I think the key, really, was communication,” Michaels said. “I kind of drill into them that at this point, we’ve been playing for six years. Your body has muscle memory. The only thing that will stop you from making the pass is yourself and your brain.

“What we talked about in those timeouts was to relax, to pass the ball up and let your body do it… Especially with serving, we just wanted to get the ball in and make it a hard serve. They kind of went to the basics and did it really well.”

From there, Hancock reverted to its mistake-prone ways in the opener, as Chassell cruised to a 25-14 victory in the fourth set to take the match.

“I think (Chassell) kind of got in their heads once they started creeping up on us,” Grieger said. “It was almost like panic.”

Next, Chassell heads to Dollar Bay on Thursday, while Hancock goes to Lake Linden-Hubbell on the same day.