By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

Coach Sarah Nuss heard a lot of her Hays High School volleyball players talking before Tuesday's season-opening quadrangular at the HHS gym.

The Indians had little varsity experience outside of senior middle hitter Lindsey Schmeidler and senior setter Emily Pfeifer. Several girls mentioned that it was their first varsity match, jitters that carried over to the court in the first game against La Crosse.

"It was a lot of deer in the headlight," Nuss said.

Hays High dropped the first game 25-20, but then rebounded to win the final two sets, 25-14 and 25-9, and beat the Leopards. Helped by strong serving and solid all-around play, the Indians then cruised to wins against Larned (25-9, 25-10) and Otis-Bison (25-15, 25-6) and opened the year 3-0.

"Had to tell them, it's the same game you played last year. It's still the same fundamentals," Nuss said.

"Had to overcome that, and after the first game, I think we did."

"We just had to get into the swing of things and then things went pretty good from there," junior outside hitter MacKenzie Albers said.

Schmeidler, a returning all-conference player in volleyball and basketball, had a big night with a team-high 18 kills in the three matches. In the third set against La Crosse, she collected two kills and a solo block as the Indians enjoyed an early 7-2 lead and never trailed.

"She knows as a senior she has got to be a leader on the team," Nuss said. "She steps into that role nicely."

Albers, who played three rotations as a substitute on varsity last season, moved into a starting role this fall. She served effectively all day and delivered three kills in the third set versus the Leopards. Overall, Albers collected 13 service aces and 10 kills for the day. The powerful Albers rarely went for the touch kill, instead often hitting the ball as hard as possible off the edge.

"She has got a lot of power behind her, that's the truth," Nuss said. "We have worked on a couple different things with her. A little bit of timing, might be a timing issue. The other thing we talked about today was an elbow issue. She likes to lead with that elbow and then she can't snap on it.

"These are things that I talked to her last year about and she is already better than last year about them," Nuss added. "I think we will get it. She has got a lot of power. We are just working on that consistency part."

Albers served out to three-point runs in the third set against La Crosse, including the final points of the match.

"I usually aim for spots," she said.

Hays High wasn't tested against Larned or Otis-Bison. The Indians opened a 4-0 lead when Pfeifer served four straight points. Larned committed receiving errors on each serve. With the score at 14-8, Albers delivered three straight kills.

"It's just snapping my wrist and hitting the ball hard," she said. "It also helps, too being mentally there."

Schmeidler finished the set with three kills in the final seven points. In the second set, Larned collected six serving errors, including three errors early that helped Hays High take a 7-2 lead.

"We have been doing some serving and some serve-receive drills and it always seems that our serving wins against our receiving," Nuss said. "We have got several strong servers out there and if we can keep the ball in play, we are in good shape. I had talked to them about after a girl is down or after she has missed a couple passes, go after her again."

Hays High finished out the wins with a victory against Otis-Bison. The Indians never trailed all match, leading 11-4 early in the first set and 13-2 in the second.

"I thought we did really well today for our first games," Albers said.

Hays High will return to action Tuesday at the Goodland Quad.