The Marshalltown volleyball team is not yet playing like a well-oiled machine, no matter how much head coach Jen O’Neal would like it to.

The Bobcats will have to take the bad with the good for the time being, until they can get the experience they need to succeed.

And even though Marshalltown swept Des Moines Hoover in Tuesday’s Iowa Alliance Conference clash at the Roundhouse, it sure didn’t feel so decisive.

The Bobcats improved to 2-0 overall and in conference play, handling the Huskies 25-20, 25-15, 25-21. It was the manner in which it happened, however, that had O’Neal scratching her head during and after the match.

“We had a really good practice last night, I was pumped coming into today,” she said. “I was like ‘I’d be kinda scared to play us.’ And then that same team did not show up tonight.

“We’ve got to find that team again going into Thursday.”

Marshalltown hosts the Apgar Tournament at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Roundhouse, welcoming Solon and Waverly-Shell Rock for round-robin play. It will take much more than the Bobcats showed on Tuesday to compete or defeat that pair of Class 4A opponents.

MHS (2-0, 2-0) made 13 service errors and 29 attacking errors in what turned out to be a three-set sweep of Hoover (0-5, 0-2). The Huskies, who hadn’t scored more than 20 points in a game before Tuesday’s contest, matched that mark in the first set and exceeded it in the finale.

The winless Huskies had lots of reasons to celebrate throughout the contest, finally taking their first lead 6-3 in the third and final set.

“We have a lot to work on to get ready for Thursday,” O’Neal said. “I think maybe at the top of the list is our mindset. We talked a lot about playing a team like Hoover tonight. I don’t know if it’s mental toughness, but no matter who’s on the other side we cannot stop doing what we do.”

Marshalltown responded well to its first deficit of the night, using a 6-1 run to regain a 9-7 lead. Hoover again capitalized on MHS swinging errors to tie the score at 9-all, but Bella Avise stepped up for the Bobcats and got the lead back for good.

Avise got a successful swing from the right side before recording aces on two of her next three serves, and a Harper Wilson kill made it 14-9. The Bobcats got out to a 19-12 advantage after two Wilson aces and kills for Kinsley Bowie and Brooklyn Smith, but the Huskies scored seven of the next eight points to get within 20-19.

Smith and Avise recorded consecutive kills to make it 22-19, and an attack error by the Huskies pushed it 23-19. Hoover collected two more points on mistakes by the MHS offense, but one final error by the Huskies accounted for the ending point.

Bowie finished with a team-leading six kills, Avise had four and Smith tallied three. Wilson scored two more kills, while Lauren O’Neal and Kendall Brummel had one apiece. O’Neal amassed 14 assists.

O’Neal served up six aces, Wilson had five and Avise four, while Gianna Baune contributed two and Smith one.

Hoover made more miscues than Marshalltown, but the Huskies’ expectations were a lot lower so they didn’t seem to bother them as much as it did the Bobcats.

“I’ve got remind myself, this really was only our second match,” coach O’Neal said. “And there’s a lot of room for us to grow, and that is OK because I don’t expect us to be running our best, playing our best volleyball right now.

“But hopefully we will be soon.”

The Bobcats follow up Thursday’s Apgar Tournament with their first road trip next week, traveling to face Alliance Conference rival Ames on Tuesday, Sept. 9.