MELLETTE – Warner set the tone early, played with the lead nearly the entire night, and remained unbeaten with a sweep over Northwestern Thursday night.

The second-rated Monarchs picked up their second sweep of the week over a rated foe with a 25-20, 25-22, 25-13 Lake Region Conference volleyball win over the fifth-rated Wildcats. The victory comes on the heels of a sweep over third-rated Class A Miller on Tuesday.

“They played well,” said Warner coach Kari Jung of her players. “I think they got some confidence after playing well against Miller.”

The Monarchs set the tone for the night by scoring the first four points of the opening set and soon opened up an eight-point advantage.

Jung credited senior captain Jordyn Jensen for her leadership.

“Jordyn at the Libero has been such a great leader, and just the positive energy she provides,” Jung said, “but our young kids had the mindset tonight that they could play with this team.”

Northwestern scored six unanswered points late in the set to make it interesting, but were unable to get over the hump.

The second set was tight and the Wildcats led 19-18 before Warner took control with six straight points.

The Monarchs then dominated the final set, bolting out to a 7-0 lead and never looking back on the way to the sweep.

“We didn’t come out strong, so we’re playing from behind the whole time,” said Northwestern coach Nora Groft, “and Warner’s way more athletic than we are and that definitely showed tonight.”

It was senior Libby Scepaniak who propelled the Monarchs to the fast start in the third with her solid serving.

“Libby did a great job serving for us, because they’re such a good passing team that we knew we had to mix it up and try to take them out of system,” Jung said. “We didn’t always get them out of system. They have some powerful hitters, but our block was pretty good, too.”

Scepaniak did a little bit of everything on the night. She finished with 21 set assists.

“I’ve been playing with the same girls at practice for a long time,” Scepaniak said, “and so I’m used to playing with them and setting for them, and I’m just really comfortable playing with them.”

Scepaniak is playing a key role for the Monarchs after the graduation of Class B Miss Volleyball Ava Nilsson, who was an all-state setter.

“It’s kind of a lot pressure, but my teammates definitely help me out,” Scepaniak said. “They’re super supportive.”

So how does Scepaniak know where to go with the ball?

“Sometimes just feel what’s right,” Scepaniak said, “and sometimes if the blockers are over on the other side, you want to try to get it to the other pin, so maybe the hitter can get a better swing with less blockers.”

Scepaniak capped her night with a rare kill in the final set. She smiled when talking about the opportunity.

“I kind of lost it in the light and it barely hit my hand,” Scepaniak said, “but hey, it works.”

In the end, the Wildcats were unable to sustain enough of an attack to hand Warner its first setback of the season.

“We just need to control our errors and those first balls,” said Northwestern junior Ashley Haven. “That’s really our weakest point right now is we get a string of errors and we just keep snowballing and snowballing. We just go down and then we have trouble picking it back up.”

Haven had her usual productive match, finishing with two aces, 10 kills, seven digs and two blocks. In the past week she recorded both her 1,000th career dig and her 1,000th career kill.

“It was really crazy. I didn’t think I was that close,” Haven said. “I wasn’t expecting it and then it happened, and I was like oh my gosh, that was cool.”

Jaycee Jung and Kyleigh Schopp each had a dozen kills to lead Warner, now 9-0 on the season. Miah Leidholt contributed nine kills.

Natually, coach Jung was pleased with performance of her players in recording another victory over a quality opponent.

“I was pretty happy with my girls,” Jung said. “They’ve had some battles on the defensive side that they won because they just had guts. I’m very proud of them.”

Anna Brumfield led Northwestern with 12 kills. The Wildcats slipped to 8-3 on the season.

Region 1B has three of the top-five rated teams in Class B along with Hitchcock-Tulare, so the race for seed points will be intense. Groft said the biggest thing for her squad is to improve throughout the season to be ready for the postseason.

“For us, we need to play better. It doesn’t matter what the seed points are, everybody in our region is going to be tough and we’ve got to play better volleyball in November than we’re playing in September,” Goft said. “And that’s just the goal every season, is just to get better as the season goes on. We definitely have lots of room to grow and that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

Serving: Warner 70-73 7 aces (MaKenna Leidholt 12-12 2 ace, Jordyn Jensen 14-14 2 aces); Northwestern 52-57 4 aces (Ashley Haven 11-12 2 aces, Ella Boekelheide 9-10 2 aces).

Hitting: Warner 99-112 44 kills (Jaycee Jung 20-22 12 kills, Kyleigh Schopp 24-29 12 kills, Miah Leidholt 11-11 9 kills); Northwestern 103-119 34 kills (Anna Brumfield 25-29 12 kills, Haven 28-32 10 kills, Breelyn Satter 14-16 4 kills).

Setting: Warner 110-110 43 assists (Libby Scepaniak 49-49 21 assists, Reagan Wood 36-36 15 assists); Northwestern 113-114 33 assists (Boekelheide 81-81 26 assists).

Digs: Warner 61 (Jensen 18, MaKenna Leidholt 13); Northwestern 51 (Boekelheide 15, Tara Blachford 11, Haven 7).

Blocks: Northwestern 1 solo 6 assists (Satter 1 solo 1 assist, Haven 2 assists, Taylor Vetter 2 assists).

Records: Warner 9-0; Northwestern 8-3.