GLENVILLE — The Glenville-Emmons volleyball team started its season with a bang on Thursday by sweeping Southeast Conference foe Hope Lutheran.

“It’s great to have the opener like this,” said Wolverines coach Lisa Ziebell. “You always want to win the first one to give the girls a confidence boost.”

Out of 75 points, the Wolverines had 16 kills and played smart defensively by letting several of the Patriots’ errant kill attempts fall out of bounds.

“You’ve got to capitalize when they turn the ball over on their own mistakes, and that’s when you go to town,” said coach Ziebell. “I think we won because we were aggressive, we hustled and we made fewer mistakes.”

Madi Ziebell led the Wolverines with seven kills, 11 digs and tied Anna Severtson with a team-high four ace serves.

In Game 1, Glenville-Emmons didn’t miss any serves and jumped out to a 21-11 lead with a pair of ace serves by Lani Poole. The Wolverines won 25-17 on a missed serve by the Patriots.

Glenville-Emmons carried the momentum into Game 2 and built another 10-point lead. The Wolverines won 25-12 on another missed serve by Hope Lutheran.

Game 3 was back and forth. It was tied at four, 11, and 16. After taking a 23-22 lead, the Wolverines scored the last two points to win 25-22.

Ziebell led the way at the net and was helped by 5 foot 9 inch sophomore Bree Ellingson, who had a pair of kills and digs.

“Bree’s improved a lot,” coach Ziebell said. “Like I told the girls, I expect a lot out of them this year.”

On the back row, coach Ziebell said she plans to build on a positive performance.

“We were where we needed to be, and we’d pop the ball up so we could play it, but now we’ve got to improve on that and bring it up to the front row,” she said.

Next, Glenville-Emmons (1-0 overall, 1-0 Southeast Conference) plays Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Houston.

Statistics are in the Scoreboard: Aug. 21 post.