By the time the Tigers closed the day with a three-set sweep of Iowa Lakes, their offense was running efficiently and smoothly.

Four different players tallied at least seven kills as the MCC volleyball squad swept aside Iowa Lakes to complete a 2-0 day at home, beating the Lakers 25-16, 25-10, 25-20.

After Marshalltown (26-9) survived a five-setter with Dakota County, 25-21, 23-25, 25-13, 24-26, 15-8, the Tigers watched as Iowa Lakes swept the Blue Knights, 25-21, 26-24, 25-20, and took heed of what that meant for Saturday’s final pairing.

Worrying first about its own side of the net, MCC managed to take control early while avoiding any hiccups along the way. The Tigers ran a balanced offensive attack that proved too much for Iowa Lakes to hang with as the Lakers (6-23) did all they could to prolong the contest. But Marshalltown used a six-point run served up by Ludmilla Souza in the third set that moved the Tigers from a 17-15 deficit to a 21-17 lead that signaled the eventual end of the Lakers’ best challenge of the match.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

“Really we’re just trying to work on the offense,” said MCC interim coach Frank Hanes. “Our defense has been amazing all year, getting dig after dig and giving our offense opportunities, it’s just trying to get some firepower out of that.

“It’s getting there. We’re trying to slow things down, people are getting healthier and we’re trying to get more people in now. It’s getting there.”

The Tigers continued to work with a makeshift lineup because of injuries, but the offense was fully functional for Saturday’s finale against Iowa Lakes. MCC sophomore outside hitter Elena Yee had five of her team-leading 12 kills in the first set alone, as the Tigers set the tone on both offense and defense. Yee also served three of her four aces and Jelena Vucic had a pair of kills from the right side during a 5-0 spurt that boosted MCC’s lead to 19-10, prompting a timeout by the Lakers.

Bojana Stekovic, a freshman outside hitter relegated to playing middle blocker because of injuries, added a service ace, sophomore Marija Egic scored a kill from the middle and Yee eventually finished off Dakota County from the outside.

“Marija is our right side but we had to move her to middle, she’s never played middle before and neither has Bojana,” said Hanes. “That’s a tough position to get new people into but they’ve been doing well. Jelena is probably going to need knee surgery after the year but she’s going to do whatever she can until surgery. She’s playing through it.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Egic finished the match with 10 kills, while Hannah Knapke and Vucic each had seven kills to finish off Iowa Lakes. MCC sophomore setter Raquel Gonzales added a pair of kills and Stekovic had one more to help the Tigers maintain their balance and variance.

“It’s always hard but I think all of our offensive players have really worked and really stepped up and really worked on their position on trying to get better,” Gonzales said. “Jelena especially. I thought she worked a lot in getting that right side down.”

Vucic, though slowed by her knee injury, is decidedly more in favor of playing on the right side than the middle blocker position she was brought in to play.

“I played that like four years ago, that’s like my position,” she said. “The middle blocker is something new for me. I think that I can do a much better job than I did.”

It was all more than Iowa Lakes could handle. The Lakers were led by Ariel Bozonie’s nine kills, while Lindsey Jensen had five more kills and Sydney Swanson added four.

“Middle is a hard position to be thrown into, so we’re working on it every day, working on blocking first,” Hanes said. “It’s called middle blocker for a reason. They need to set up the defense and transition trying to get involved, and that frees up our outsides a little bit.”

The gameplan came together against Iowa Lakes, that’s for sure. Yee had another six kills in the second set, including two from the back row, and Egic powered out kills on the outside, in the middle, on a slide attack and by putting down an over-pass to account for nearly half of her total offense from the match.

The third set was a much more back-and-forth affair until Souza served up a deciding 6-0 surge that gave her Tigers a 21-17 lead. Souza had an ace, Knapke had a pair of kills while Egic had two kills and a block during the breakaway run for MCC.

Knapke tacked on two more kills and Morgan Jesse closed out the contest with an ace on the final point of the match.

“I think our defense was really good and that did help a lot, and I think just having a game before that kind of helped us warm that up,” Gonzales said. “We always try to pay attention to the other team, to see what they’re doing and to see what we can do against them, but at the end of the day it’s us. It’s about how we’re going to play so we tend to focus on us.”

A part of that strategy included serving aggressively, which resulted in nine aces and13 service errors but ultimately a win for the Tigers. It helped MCC create some leeway while continuing to grow its offense around Gonzales.

“We want to serve tough, we’re trying to get the other teams out of system as much as we can,” Hanes said. “We’re playing with people who haven’t played middle their whole lives, so the further we can get their setter off the net, the better chance we have of setting up a good block.

“We really have to serve aggressively with the lineup we’ve got in there. They’ve been doing a good job — a few too many misses, but they’re doing a good.”

The Tigers dive headstrong into Iowa Community College Athletic Conference play starting with Wednesday’s trip to Council Bluffs to face No. 7 Iowa Western.