Houghton’s Clea Ollanketo prepares to deliver the opening serve in match against Gwinn Wednesday at the Houghton Gym. (David Karnosky/Daily Mining Gazette)

HOUGHTON — The Houghton Gremlins volleyball team is young by the program’s standards. Coach Blaire Zenner’s squad has just four seniors on the roster, and at times Wednesday, that youth showed on the court as the Gremlins defeated a scrappy Gwinn Modeltowners team, 25-8, 25-19, 25-22.

One of the four seniors had a huge evening from the service line. Clea Ollanketo racked up five aces over the course of the match, which helped set the tone for the Gremlins throughout the match.

“She comes in with a lot of experience playing back row for us last year, and now taking on the libero role,” said Zenner when asked about Ollanketo’s value to the Gremlins. “So, we’re really looking forward to having her start us off strong serving, and then having a solid back row and taking on that leadership role as our libero.”

Ollanketo did just that. She opened the match with a pair of aces, which put the Modeltowners back on their heels. Coach Jessica Stansky feels that is par for the course for her team, as they have struggled to get out of the gates with the same level of intensity they find by the second set.

“We started off pretty slow, which I kind of figured,” she said. “Our girls are a second-set team, not a first set team.”

Stansky has been working with her team on getting them to focus on the entire court, not just the space in front of themselves.

“We’ve been working really hard since the start of season to get them thinking about the other side of the court, not just our side of the court, being more aggressive and picking their weak points, instead of our weak points, and trying not to come back from a negative.”

Alongside Ollanketo, two other seniors had strong nights to help lift the Gremlins to the win. Sophia Neves had a match-high 11 kills. Danica Ryynanen chipped in five.

“We lost a good group of our starting players, and seniors, last season,” said Zenner, “so, we’re really looking forward to having some of those juniors, and now seniors, step up and take on a bigger role in our season.”

A pair of juniors who had a strong night for Houghton were Laney Johnson, who added five kills, including three at key moments when the Gremlins needed a change in momentum, and Eva Gerard, who also had five.

Despite the offense the Gremlins threw at the Modeltowners, Stanssky felt that her team stood its ground the longer the match went.

“So I think as a whole, our girls did pretty dang good against a really good team,” she said. “They have some heavy hitters and some great servers. So, it was a really fun match to watch.”

Houghton took advantage of Ollanketo’s early strong serves and rolled to a lopsided first set win. In the second set, Houghton again started well, but gave away five of the first eight points the Modeltowners scored with mistakes, both defensively and offensively.

The third set was much more of a back and forth affair.

“I think we kind of caught Gwinn off guard just coming out strong right from the start,” Zenner said. “Then I think they caught on to that a little bit more in the second and third set. But, I still think we were able to hold on to that and keep pushing forward.”

Zenner chalked up the errors to the youth of her team. She was proud of them for finding a way through the mistakes and bouncing back.

“We had some miscommunication errors that second set,” she said. “Our serve-receive was not on as much as it had been in the first set, so (we focused on) getting back to the basics and really focusing on that serve-receive pass.”

It did not help the Gremlins that Gwinn found their service game in the second set.

“Gwinn served very aggressively (in) the second set, so I think that put us a little out of our comfort zone,” said Zenner.

Stansky was excited to see her team find its game.

“It was all a mental thing for them,” she said. “The skills are there. They know what to do when something’s coming at them. It’s just keeping our momentum, and our attitudes in check, and fighting forward.

“Watching them continue to fight, and actually think about what they’re doing, and putting it all together, I was really proud of them tonight.”

In the third set, Gwinn’s service game faltered, which kept them from being able to build any type of rally for more than a point or two. Stansky knows it is smoothing her team can work on as the season progresses.

“So, serving is one thing where we struggle,” she said. “I always tell the girls, ‘We miss one, we have to get the next few,’ because we can easily get behind by a couple of service errors.”

The Gremlins similarly struggled with their service game, especially in the third set. Still their coach was happy to see the team fight through the mistakes to earn the win.

“We had a lot of miss-serves that set,” Zenner said. “That will be something we’ll be working on in the gym the next couple of weeks, but (we) were able to dig deep and find enough energy and momentum to still have us end up on top.”

CLEAN SWEEP

Both the freshman and the junior varsity squads also earned wins Wednesday over the Modeltowners. The freshmen won in straight sets, while the JV team needed three sets to seal the win.

UP NEXT

Houghton is off until Sept. 7 when they travel to face Westwood in Ishpeming.