GARDEN CORNERS — The Big Bay de Noc Black Bears dropped a 3-0 (25-17, 25-18, 25-22) volleyball decision to Maplewood Baptist here Tuesday in a Northern Lights League contest.

Black Bears’ coach Angie Paulson was pleased with the improvement her team shown in each set.

“Overall, we had a lot of positives come out of this match,” she said. “The fact that we improved our score each set is proof that what we are doing in practice is working and the girls are finally starting to mesh together. We have a young team with eighth through 12th graders, so we are trying to balance fundamentals with real game play when we practice.”

Meagan Yonker led the Black Bears with 26 digs, four aces, three kills and two assists. Katelyn DeKeyser chipped in with 19 digs and one kill; Kaitlyn Massengill recorded eight digs, four assists and two kills; Camryn Pederson had seven digs and an ace; Larissa Jones added 10 digs and Emma Fiegel had four digs and two aces.

“Meagan Yonker and Katelyn DeKeyser did a great job of finding the holes tonight on the floor and making critical decisions on both defense and offense. The two of them definitely led our stats tonight,” Paulson said. “I was really proud of Camryn Pederson tonight, too. She’s a first-year volleyball player, an eighth grader at that, and she came out with passion and fire tonight. She had some good serves and got some great digs as well.”

Paulson felt serving errors and bad passing was the Black Bears’ undoing.

“Serving errors definitely hurt us tonight, as well as bad passes,” she said. “If we can lower our errors in these two areas, I am confident we are going to start seeing some wins.”

The Black Bears visit Mackinac Island for contests Friday night and Saturday morning. The Big Bay soccer team will also be part of the trip and play Mackinac Island at the same times.