THS held off late charges by Turner in the first two sets, then blew by the Bears in the third for a three-set sweep in their season opener, 25-20, 25-21, 25-5.

After surviving back-to-back scares in the first and second sets, the Chieftains (1-0, 1-0 Kaw Valley League) set the tone in the third when sophomore Mykah Wingerter opened scoring with an aggressive kill. They grabbed a 3-2 lead early, then took complete control with a 13-0 run with junior Kaitlin Hall serving. Hall gave Turner fits during the scoring burst, as the Bears failed to get several of her serves back over the net.

“(Coach Tiffany Parker) was telling me where to serve and I was just hitting it every time,” Hall said. “I was happy that I was doing it, so that just picked up my confidence.”

The Chieftains didn’t let up, increasing their lead to 20-5 before closing out the match with five straight points — a stark contrast to the first two sets, in which they built comfortable leads, then allowed Turner to claw back in.

“We’ve been challenging them to become more confidence and aggressive — just coming out and wanting to dominate,” Parker said. “In the first two sets, we didn’t do that. We were caught off guard on a lot of things. We needed to come out and absolutely dominate every single point, and I think we did that (in the third set).”

Neither team could take control early on, as they found themselves tied at 12-12 midway through the first set. Tonganoxie scored the next six points, but Turner eventually got back to within three before the Chieftains scored back-to-back points to end it.

A 19-9 lead shrunk to just three points in the second, as Turner used a 9-2 burst to make it 21-18, but once again, the Chieftains regained their composure down the stretch. They got a chance with a 24-21 lead, and senior Summer Cerny ended it with a kill to give her squad a 2-0 advantage.

“I thought Summer came out and really played well,” Parker said of Cerny, a transfer from McLouth. “She’s really come around over the last few days and understood ‘I’ve got to be able to hit volleyballs in.'”

Parker’s squad will try to improve to 2-0 Thursday when it travels to Eudora for a non-league dual. The varsity match will begin immediately following the JV match, which is set for 4:30 p.m.

“I told them after the match, ‘this is what happens when you come out and decide you can actually take over a match,'” Parker said. “It can’t just be a one-time thing. Even tomorrow at practice, we’ll start there.”