North opened the season with back-to-back wins then dropped a pair of matches at the Solon tri on Saturday.
The Rangers responded with a 3-1 win at Geneva on Monday to kick off a challenging week.
“Today’s win was very important,” said North coach Chelsey Regovich. “It helps keep the girls’ confidence up and that team chemistry only gets better.”
North won the first set 25-20 then dropped game two, 26-24. The Rangers regrouped to finish off the Eagles, 25-12 and 25-13.
“The girls did a great job finishing tonight,” Regovich said. “We kept switching up our hits and that helped. We all knew if we took out Geneva’s No. 1 player, Lexie Hraga, on blocking that would help our defense.”
Senior Samantha Pirosko led the Rangers with 14 kills and also contributed with 17 digs.
“We have quite a few games this week and it was really important that we started off on a good note, so we really wanted this win to set us up for the rest of the week,” Pirosko said. “We knew that in order to win we had to play hard, smart and together, and that’s exactly what we did after the loss in game two.”
Senior Maria Blatnik and junior Lindsey Mausser both reached double figures in kills with 11 and 10, respectively, and both tied for the team lead with eight blocks each. Mausser also recorded a team-high three aces and junior Jill Borthwick led the Rangers with 28 digs. Junior Taylor Valaitis finished with a team-high 21 assists.
North improved to 3-2 heading into Tuesday’s Western Reserve Conference opener at Mayfield.
