Austin Hemmingson | Daily Press Mid Peninsula’s Shae Lampinen serves during Tuesday’s home match against Big Bay de Noc.

ST. NICHOLAS — A pair of very young volleyball teams got their seasons started against one another Tuesday night as the host Mid Peninsula Wolverines swept the Big Bay de Noc Black Bears 3-0 (25-9, 25-10, 25-15).

“It’s always nice to get that very first win,” Mid Pen coach Emily Kayser said. “Our rotation has never played together … we only have two returning varsity players this year, so it’s a big learning experience for them — learning the rotation and learning how the other two girls play.”

Mid Pen started the match with six straight points on the back of Kora Prater’s serving. Prater finished the run with back-to-back aces, setting the stage for the rest of the set.

Prater then started the second set even stronger, serving five aces in the first six points to help the Wolverines build a 6-0 lead.

Unlike the first set, however, the Black Bears were able to hang around, pulling within 19-10 at one point. But Daisy Englund served for the last five points and finished the set off with an ace.

“Mid Pen has some hard servers, so it took them a little while to make those adjustments in the beginning,” Black Bears coach Angie Paulson said. “But as time went on, they did that.”

Big Bay’s young squad showed its growth in the third set, as Katelyn DeKeyser served for three straight points to open the frame. The Black Bears built an 8-4 advantage before Mid Pen went on a 17-3 run to take a 21-11 lead in a set they would eventually close out to seal the match.

“We have a young team,” Paulson said. “We have some girls that have literally been playing for a week that started late. I was kind of talking to one of the refs here, and they said their effort was really good.

“Yeah, on the scoreboard we got beat, but the effort they put in was really good. I didn’t even have to point the mistakes out for most of them — they looked at me and they would say, ‘Yep, I know what I did,’ which is good for any coach. You’re proud of that, because it means they’re listening when you tell them things at practice.”

Englund led the Wolverines with nine assists and three aces, while Landry Koski added six kills, four blocks and two aces. Prater finished with eight aces, Shea Lampinen had five aces, and Pattie Salmi tallied four aces. Allyson Lancour chipped in with four kills.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of growth with how young they are, developing into strong players,” Kayser said. “The majority of our girls right now are sophomores, so we have a lot of time to develop them into the players we want them to be.”

Ellie Nedeau led the Black Bears with eight assists and two aces, while Piper Jones tallied six assists and four kills. Camryn Pederson added five assists and four digs, while DeKeyser chipped in with five digs and four assists. Abby Matheny had seven digs.

“My older girls did a really good job of kind of coaching the younger ones on the court,” Paulson said. “For it being a whole new experience with the masks on the bench and certain people not touching the ball, they really did a good job. I’m not mad about the loss. … I can’t be mad about it because their effort was really good. I couldn’t expect a better outcome from it, unless we would have won.”

Mid Pen hosts Carney-Nadeau Sept. 3, while Big Bay hosts Superior Central on the same night.