MENOMINEE — A short-handed Menominee volleyball team saw its season come to an end in the opening round of districts on Wednesday night as Bark River-Harris was victorious in a 3-0 sweep.

Sporting its fourth different lineup in the last four matches and with just six girls suiting up on Wednesday, the Maroons’ struggled to losses of 25-10, 25-6 and 25-15.

“We could do a lot of what if’s tonight, but this is the hand we were dealt. The girls rose to the challenge. At no point did they say they didn’t want to do this. They wanted to be on the floor tonight no matter what was going to happen or how it was going to look. They wanted just the six we were going to have, and I’m proud of them,” Menominee coach Sarah Betzinger said. “This has always been a very team-oriented group, and they have improved so much all year. The rotation we used tonight — we spent 10 minutes working on and walking through before the game, and that’s it. And for them to come out battle the way they did was really great to watch.”

The Broncos used a 6-0 run to begin the first set, continued to build on it with a flurry of kills from Alaska Peterson, Aspen Fredrick and Kassidy Roll, and eventually won the match on two straight violations by the Maroons.

Set two was a forgettable one for Menominee as BR-H tallied 10 aces en route to the big victory. The highlight of the set for the Maroons was a big block at the net from sophomore Piper Monroe, who was brought up from JV for the match.

“Piper was a little nervous coming into the game, but I thought she played great,” Betzinger said. “She stepped up big time tonight, and I’m proud of her.”

Menominee grabbed a lead for the first time all night at the start of the final set thanks to some errors by the Broncos coupled with a kill from Kayla Drifka and an ace from Liz Nerat to take the upper hand, 8-5.

After that, BR-H tied the score at eight, and when the score was tied 9-9, the Broncos gained some momentum with a kill from Tressa Ives.

It allowed them to go on a 12-0 run and take a 21-9 advantage before a kill from Menominee’s Laura Magrane stopped the bleeding. It was too little late, however, as the Broncos would go on to close out the match.

“We got comfortable in the beginning of the third game and knocked (BR-H) out of system a little bit, but we just didn’t have enough in the tank tonight,” Betzinger said.

Nerat led the Maroons with two aces, two kills, three assists and two digs; Monroe had nine digs and a block; Makennah Dausey had a team-high 10 digs; Magrane added two kills and two digs; Drifka led the offense with five assists and added four digs and Erin Olson had five digs and a kill.

BR-H will now face Manistique tonight in the district finals.