CONCORDIA, Kansas — The Cloud County Community College volleyball team fell in straight sets to Hutchinson Community College on Friday night: 25-19, 25-14 and 25-22.

The final result was obviously not what the T-Birds (2-5 overall, 0-2 KJCCC) were looking for. But they showed flashes of emerging from an early season slump in what was their first match running a freshly implemented 5-1 offense.

"This was the first time running the 5-1 with this group. We actually just went over it this afternoon before game time," said Cloud County head coach, Molly Skocny. "I thought that it went fairly well, opened up some opportunities for our hitters by making that opposing middle blocker have to choose what direction they were going to go."

"Obviously, we have some things we still need to clean up. We need to reduce our errors and tidy up what we're doing offensively and defensively. But I know this group is going to be able to play. It's easy to get wrapped up in having a below .500 record right now and losing two conference matches. It is early and I do believe this group will clean things up and be effective."

Cloud County came out energized in the first set as it traded points back and forth with the Blue Dragons (4-2 overall, 2-0 KJCCC) before Hutch created a 5-6 point cushion late in Set One.

After dropping the second set 25-14, the T-Birds rebounded with their best set of the match in Set Three as they led by as many as seven points at 17-10 to force a timeout by Hutchinson.

Cloud had 14 team kills in the third set alone, paced by sophomore Irem Bat as she powered down six of her team-high 11 kills.

"I told the girls that we need to be around 13 kills to be able to win sets," Skocny said. "Take the errors out of there, earn a couple more points and we were there."

While the 5-1 offense was clicking and producing results, the shorter rotation led to fatigue that started to kick in with the T-Birds up 17-10 as unforced errors by Cloud opened the door for Hutchinson to counter with 10-2 run to take a 20-19 lead en route to a 25-22 Set Three win.

Redshirt sophomore Drew Mann heled Bat carry the load offensively Friday night as she finished with nine kills, while sophomore Elizabeth Nobert added six.

Working as the primary setter, freshman Kamryn Stark had a strong performance with a career-high 28 assists.

Defensively, sophomore defensive specialist Brooke Baird led all Cloud players with 11 digs, followed by freshman libero Britt Michaelis with eight Digs. Bat also chipped in six digs.

Up next for the T-Birds will be a road trip next Friday to McCook, Nebraska for three matches at the McCook Invite where they will see Cowley County Community College, Neosho County Community College and Southeast Community College.

"It'll be a good tournament and I'm excited for the girls to have the weekend off and kind of restore some energy and take time to digest everything we've gone through here lately," Skocny said.