The Summit High School varsity volleyball team dropped to 0-2 on the season Thursday evening in a loss at Battle Mountain.

The Huskies defeated the Tigers in straight sets — 25-19, 25-16 and 25-23. Tigers volleyball alumna and first-year head coach Lex Zangari said the Huskies height and length at the net presented a stronger block than Summit had seen in its season-opening loss at Steamboat Springs. Because the Tigers have been short on practices to start the season due to COVID-19 quarantines, Zangari said the team didn’t have the opportunity to practice much against that kind of a block.

Zangari added that the Huskies had some “big hitters” on their offensive side.

“We had to work through it as we went,” Zangari said. “We did work on a little bit of defense in the practice the day before, so it’s just something we are continuing to improve and work on. That was a great example for the girls to see where we need to be.”

Zangari said the Tigers did not lack for effort or grit in the loss Thursday and highlighted Mya Nicholds and Emily Koetteritz for their consistency on the back row defensively.

“Those two did a good job reading hitters and making every effort they could to get that ball up or even to just get a touch,” the coach said.

When attacking, Zangari said the Tigers were “even across the board” in contributions from a number of players. In the season’s second contest, Zangari said Mackenzie Westenskow, Olivia Brewer, Olivia Westall, CJ Novotna, Taylor Tullio and Bella Speer played well.

“They all rose to the occasion and took the advice I was hoping they would of being aggressive and not being scared of making mistakes,” Zangari said. “It’s a big mental challenge for them to go against something big. It’s a challenge, but they went for it. And obviously it didn’t come out as a win for us, but those were pretty good scores in my opinion, and we had much fewer errors than last game.”

Heading into Saturday’s first home game of the season versus Palisade at 1 p.m., Zangari said the main focus of the team will be to play aggressive at the net. At Friday’s practice, Summit’s main focus was becoming more confident playing in certain scenarios

“Where to be on defense — that there’s no question who gets what ball,” Zangari said. “It’s a big confidence thing. You have to get used to learning to trust each other on the court. We’re right there, hanging with everybody. There’s not a whole lot to be fixed other than confidence things.”