The Pioneer High School girls varsity volleyball team has gotten the 2023 season off to a good start following a victory over Yuba City.

The Patriots (1-0) hosted the Honkers in both teams’ season opener on Friday night in Woodland. Pioneer prevailed in four sets against Yuba City.

“There were spurts of amazing, beautiful volleyball,” said Patriots coach Annie Carter. “Then there were moments where we spiraled and did not play consistently. We’re just working on consistency and keeping that level of play because that’s super fun to watch. For a first game, I think it did go really well, it showed what we needed to work on.”

Pioneer started slowly in the first set and the Honkers jumped out to an early lead. The Patriots then went on a roll to erase their deficit and earn a sizable advantage. Pioneer reached set point with a 24-18 lead but then began to struggle.

Yuba City fought back to even the score at 24 a piece, in part due to the Patriots settling in and shaking off the rust in their first match of the year. Pioneer remain unphased and scored the next two points to win the first set 26-24.

“I think they do a really good job of noticing that they are making a couple errors in a row and then regrouping, coming together and pulling themselves out of it,” Carter explained. “Really, for them, it’s just mentally being able to move past the last mistake that you made. I feel like they are making progress everyday at that skill.”

After regaining their momentum, the Patriots rolled through the second set to prevail 25-13. However, Pioneer was unable to earn the sweep as the Honkers took the third set 25-18 to stay alive.

The final set was back and forth as the Patriots trailed early by a disadvantage of 16-8. Pioneer pushed through the adversity to even the score, ultimately win the fourth set 25-22 and earn the match victory.

“Being able to move past it and come together as a group is really important because when they do that, then they’re able to get really excited and it’s a big momentum shift,” Carter said. “I think that we will continuously get better at that throughout the season but especially in the last set when we were down by so much. They were able to come together, shake that off, forget about the first part of the fourth set, really fight hard and play good, clean volleyball in order to come back and win that last set.”

Senior outside hitter Cayley Brown had a dominant performance with a game-high 23 kills. Brown racked up more than half of the Patriots’ total kills as Pioneer finished with 40.

“She really came in crucial for us and just put the ball down,” Carter said of Brown. “Yuba City had awesome, scrappy defense. They did an amazing job of just keeping the ball off the floor. Even our big, crazy slumps, they were just picking them up, sending them back and allowing for us to make the errors. She did a really good job of finding the floor.”

Fellow outside hitter, Ally Nunez, was second on the team in kills with nine. The sophomore also led the Patriots in serving aces with six of Pioneer’s eight total. Nunez led the comeback charge in the fourth set with back-to-back aces, which is a rare occurrence and extremely hard to do according to her head coach.

“Ally Nunez had an amazing game from the serving line. She really brought us back in our last set. We earned the ball back at 9-16 from a kill from Olivia Gill. Then Ally Nunez went back to serve and she served two aces in a row,” Carter recalled. “At the varsity level it is not common. Especially to get two in a row the way she did. It was a huge momentum swing for us.

“For her to go back there at 9-16 and serve us all the way to 16-16 was just phenomenal. Especially with her only being a sophomore, that’s a lot of pressure on a young player. She just went back there and killed it.”

Sophomore setter Marisa Bryson and freshman libero Layla Medalle tied for the game-high in digs with 11 each. Nunez added nine, Brown had eight and junior defensive specialist Sofia Hernandez recorded six.

The Patriots tallied five solo blocks as senior middle hitter Olivia Gill led the way with two. Brown, Bryson and senior middle hitter Annika Miller had one a piece, respectively.

Pioneer faces a tough test in its next match on the road against Yolo County foe Davis, on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

“They are a much bigger school than us so it’s always really fun to see how we can push ourselves to compete at a higher level,” Carter said. “It really just shows us what we need to work on to get better as a team. If we can take a set off (of them), that’s fantastic. Our goal is to just compete the best that we can. It’s fun to see teams that are bigger than you and that push you because that shows what kind of a team you truly are.”