Eddie O’Neill/Daily Mining Gazette Houghton’s Deja Brule reaches to attempt a block of a hit by Hancock’s D’Andra Kero during a match Thursday at the Houghton Gym.

HOUGHTON — What a difference two nights make. On Tuesday, the Houghton Gremlins volleyball squad could not put three serves together in a row as they lost in four sets to Calumet.

Fast forward 48 hours and the girls from Houghton were posting service runs of six and even 10 as they defeated the Hancock Bulldogs in three straight sets, 25-11, 25-9 and 25-12, to claim the Copper Spike trophy as part of Copper Bowl week.

“We talked about what went wrong with the Calumet game,” said Houghton coach John Christianson. “We talked about what we needed to do better. We worked on it in practice. We worked on communication, discipline and focus and those three things came out tonight as we played very well.”

This was the second time the Gremlins defeated the Bulldogs this year.

Sarah Geiger, head coach of the Bulldogs, is still scratching her head wondering what went wrong last night.

“It could have been nerves, intimidation or fear on the night of the big game,” she said, “but whatever it was, it hit us hard the moment we went on the floor.”

The Gremlins had control of the match from the first serve of the first set. Christianson noted, in particular, the play of setter Casana Ryynanen. She had five aces and 16 assists.

“She was flawless tonight,” he said. “She is our quarterback and when she is in her game, good things happen. She is able to move the ball around and set up our offense.”

Ryynanen’s go-to hitters were senior Deja Brule and Daityn Markham. Brule had seven kills and Markham had eight.

The Gremlins only had three hitting errors on the night.

Houghton’s big swings kept Hancock on the defense most of the game. They struggled to simply return hard hit balls back over the net. With that in mind they could not sustain any offensive attacks.

“When we’d get the ball, we couldn’t put a service run together,” said Geiger.

She noted that senior Karena Holmstrom had three kills as did Abby Brooks. Maddie Johnson, the Bulldogs setter, had 10 assists.

“Momentum is key in these games,” said Geiger. “We just didn’t have it tonight against the big hometown crowd.”