The North Platte St. Pat’s Lady Irish played a lackluster first two sets against Mullen on Tuesday. They played better in the third set but it wasn’t enough as they lost in four sets to the Lady Broncos at the McGahan Activities Center.

The scores of the sets were 25-13, 25-12, 18-25, 25-19.

In the first set, Mullen, the No. 1 ranked team in Class D2 at 17-1, took a 9-4 lead after Abby Gracey made back-to-back kills on the left side. St. Pat’s (10-9) came back to pull within 10-8 after a kill by Sydney Lake but that was the closest they got. The Broncos ran off seven straight points late with Harper Andersen serving to take a 23-12 lead.

The Irish scored the first two points of the second set but Mullen scored the next six points with Kalli Licking serving. Brynne McCully followed with a seven-point run shortly thereafter to put the Broncos up by 10 at 14-4 and St. Pat’s couldn’t get back in it.

“In the first set, we were in the wrong rotation; we just changed our rotation so I’ll take credit for that,” Irish Head Coach Maddy Krebs said. “But we were just slow to come out. We struggle once we don’t start hot and we struggled to come back.”

The third set looked to be more of the same as Mullen led by three twice, early on. But the Irish tied it 9-9 after Olivia Phelps made consecutive kills from the left side. St. Pat’s took the lead on the next play as Jenna Donohoe hit the ball out of play. Gianna Pieper then served for an ace, Phelps made another kill on the left side and Gracey hit the ball into the net giving St. Pat’s a 13-9 lead.

“In the third set, we controlled the game,” Krebs said. “We were disciplined with our defense. We were in the spots we needed to be in and we reminded ourselves of where we needed to be.”

The Irish held on to evade the sweep as they only allowed the Broncos to score three more points in service.

“We made some adjustments in the third set and that’s the team I see every day in practice,” Krebs said.

But by losing the first two sets, St. Pat’s left themselves no room for error in case Mullen rebounded in the fourth set.

With the score tied at 5-5, the Broncos took the lead when Zaleah Cartwright hit the ball into the net. They won the next three plays to take control at 9-5 and they kept the Irish at a distance the rest of the way to pick up the victory.

“The fourth set was much better than the first two but we just lost a little bit of discipline,” Krebs said. “We forgot where we should be sometimes and that’s just the up and down of volleyball. But that third set gave us some confidence to know we are in it.”

Krebs said one reason her team has been inconsistent is that too often, they’re waiting for a break to happen instead of creating it themselves.

“It’s a lot easier to have energy when things are going your way and that’s what we’re working on,” she said. “We need to keep reminding ourselves that even if we’re down, we have to remain consistent, communicate and have energy.”

Next, St. Pat’s will host Sutherland (9-12) on Thursday.

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