It wasn’t the start that Lone Tree wanted in its  conference opener on Thursday, as Louisa-Muscatine found the holes in the Lions' defense and took an early 13-point lead on the road. But a late five-point run gave Lone Tree a little momentum which carried over as the Lady Lions took the next three sets for a 16-25, 25-19, 25-11, 25-17 win. 

“Our energy, especially, was huge,” said senior Riley Krueger, who led Lone Tree with 11 kills and seven aces. “We've been working on that in practice too — always staying up. And I think that's really what pushed us through.”

Trailing 23-11 in the opening set, the Lions got a side out followed by an ace from Krueger. Ella Buser found the corner with a perfect set for a 14th point. Another Krueger ace cut it to 24-16 before the Falcons finally closed the door. 

Coach Lora Sieverding had called a timeout during a seven-point run that put the Falcons up 21-8.

“Look, you’re probably not going to get all of them, but let’s get to 15,” she said to her team. “We ended up getting to 16, and it's just those little things that build confidence and show them that they can do it. And as the night went on, they really started to play like a team.” 

Lone Tree took that momentum into the second set, where the Lions built a 9-3 lead with the serving of Buser and Cate Sexton. Sexton, a sophomore, finished 21-of-23 serving with three aces and led Lone Tree with two blocks. 

Lone Tree would take the second set 25-19 for its first set win of the season. The Lady Lions were dominant in the third and found themselves on the other side of a 21-8 score at one point. 

“We knew that we could play to our level and that first set was definitely not to our level,” Krueger said. “We went outside and we just talked about how we needed to stay up and that's exactly what we did.”

The Lone Tree student section, which was loud all night long, really made some noise as Lone Tree finished the third set by a score of 25-11 and finished the Falcons with a 25-17 fourth. 

“We only had three that had really been on the varsity court last year, so there was a lot of new blood out there,” Sieverding said. “It was messy (in set one) and they knew it, but I think having a strong Lions’ Den behind us really helped. We went out there after that game and were like, 'look, let it go and we're just going to start again'.”

Buser finished with nine kills, five aces, and a team-high 13 assists. Alex Dautremont had five kills and a team-high 12 digs. Hogan Eden had nine digs and five assists. 

Sieverding said the Lions did a good job staying focused through the four sets on Thursday. 

“There was a lot of leadership,” she said. “Alex, who's a sophomore, really stepped up and kind of ran our defense back there, and Hogan as our libero, when she came in, she was on. And Riley was just all about, ‘give it to me, I’m going to kill it.’ All those little things were just clicking together and working.”