Gladstone sophomore Lillie Johnson serves the ball during a match against Menominee on Aug. 24, 2023 at Gladstone High School.

GLADSTONE — First-game jitters can get the best of any team to start a season.

Gladstone volleyball felt that in its season opener against Menominee on Thursday. While the Braves were unable to overcome an early deficit in a 20-25, 13-25, 25-14, 25-22, 13-15 home loss on Thursday, it showed that the 2023 iteration of Gladstone volleyball may be different than seasons past.

“It’s the best I’ve seen them play,” said Braves head coach Kaitlyn Hardwick, who coached a majority of the 2023 roster as freshmen and sophomores. “We missed a lot of serves, I think that killed us. But I think all in all we did really well with communicating, which obviously we need to be a little bit louder, but I think we did great.

“I think we’re going to improve so much over the season.”

After a neck-and-neck start, communication breakdowns and service issues began to pile on for the Braves. The mistakes resulted in an 11-3 Maroons run to put the home team down 16-8 in set one. Gladstone battled back to claim 12 of the set’s next 20 points, but the hole was too deep to climb out of to drop the first set of the season 25-20.

Errors and miscommunications remained steady for the Braves in set two. After the Braves pulled ahead 8-5, the Maroons earned 17 of the frame’s final 25 points to claim set two 25-13 and take a commanding 2-0 stranglehold on the match.

While the Braves found themselves in this position plenty of times in the past, something changed during the break between sets two and three.

Hardwick’s message was clear, and boiled down to one word.

Positivity.

“We told them that they needed to be positive on the bench,” Hardwick said. “That makes the girls on the court even more positive, and that makes positive things happen for us. That’s when we started getting more kills, some more aces and more everything. That helped us push along and get to that fifth set.”

After a 10-10 tie in set three, the Braves found themselves in the driver’s seat, unleashing a furious 8-0 run. Menominee climbed back to 18-13, but Gladstone kept the pedal to the floor, finishing the set on a 7-1 run to take set three 25-14.

The Braves maintained a multi-point lead early in set four until the Maroons chipped away at the home team’s advantage. Behind a 9-5 run, Menominee placed Gladstone’s backs against the wall with a 20-19 lead. The Braves didn’t back down, finishing the set on a 6-2 run, capped by an ace from junior Alli Larson, for a 25-22 victory and forcing a furious race to 15 points in set five.

With the final frame tied 8-8, the maroons opened an 11-8 lead to force a Braves timeout. Gladstone rallied to pull to 13-12, forcing the Maroons to use a timeout. On the ensuing play, it was 13-13.

The Maroons front line, which blocked Gladstone’s kill attempts in the frame’s first two possessions, proved mighty again. A missed swing from the Braves resulted in a 15-13 victory for Menominee.

Despite falling short of a season-opening victory, Hartwick saw that this team has a lot of heart.

“You can tell that they want to actually be good this year,” she said. “Right now, we’re ahead of the game. Everybody expects us to be not as good. But I feel like we’ve come so far over the last couple of weeks. I feel like we’re just going to get better.”

Stats were not available before the 10:30 p.m. print deadline.

The Braves host Manistique at 7 p.m. on Aug. 29.