Steamboat Pilot & Today

Oak Creek — The Soroco High School volleyball team entered Friday night’s homecoming matchup against Vail Christian with a head full of confidence. The squad insists, even after dropping the match in a quick three games, it exited with that confidence.

Soroco couldn’t measure up to one of the league’s premier teams Friday night, falling 25-14, 25-16, 25-13. Still, the loss did little to dissuade the team from the idea that this can be a special season.

“We’re still playing really well as a team,” Rams senior Lauryn Bruggink said. “We’ve improved in every game this season, and we didn’t get worse in this one even though we lost.”

Soroco will have the chance to prove Friday night wasn’t a step backward when it travels to play West Grand and Vail Mountain in Kremmling at 9 a.m. today.

Neither team is likely to be as capable as the Saints were Friday, and that’s good news for the Rams, who struggled mightily in each of the three games. Vail Christian continuously found ways around Soroco’s defense, pounding the ball in for kills almost at will.

“They were really good offensively. No matter where we were on defense, they moved it to where we were not,” Soroco coach Kim Reeves said. “We tried to adjust and worked better, but they still hit it right over our blocks.”

It made for a rough night and was a message to the team that its defense needs work. Still, the Rams insist it wasn’t a sign of things to come.

“We have to look forward and not think about this,” Bruggink said. “This is just the start.”