AT THE NET — Big Red’s A’rya Bigsby goes up to hit the ball in front of teammate Emma Lyons during Monday’s match inside the Crimson Center. - Andrew Grimm

STEUBENVILLE — Volleyball is a game of momentum, and it took Big Red just a little too long to find some of it on Monday evening.

Visiting Carrollton pulled away in the first two sets inside the Crimson Center, then fended off a push from the hosts in the third set to complete an early season sweep.

The Warriors, who wrapped up a second sweep to start their season 2-0, won by scores of 25-14, 25-19 and 25-23.

Big Red (0-2) got better throughout the match, but the hole was too deep against a quality opponent.

“It seemed like we picked up the momentum a little too late,” Big Red head coach Logan Colabella said. “You hope, when you lose the first set, you can bounce back and pick up the momentum from there, but it just felt like we weren’t able to find any until it was too late.”

Carrollton scored the final five points of the opening set to win it pretty quickly, then fended off a late push from Big Red in the second set to go up 2-0.

That strong close to the second set for Steubenville carried over to the third set, though, as Big Red led early and stayed within striking distance all the way through.

The hosts made a strong push late, rallying from four points down to tie the set twice (20-20, 21-21) and took a 22-21 lead, forcing the Warriors to use a timeout.

Out of the timeout, though, the visitors rattled off four of the final five points to put things away.

“I was happy to see that they didn’t give up and kept fighting,” Colabella said. “That is something we’re always proud to see.”

For Big Red, A’rya Bigsby had eight kills and five digs, Emma Lyons had six kills, five blocks and six digs, Aubrey Slussar had 20 assists, two kills and three digs, Addy Snyder had six kills, Annabelle Clutter recorded 18 digs, Giuliana Cramer had 14 digs and Phynyx Fleming tallied seven blocks.

“It’s still pretty early, two games is not the end of the world,” Colabella said. “We see some things we need to work on, we still have two games this week so we’ll work on what we need to work on, get better and go from there.

“We’re hoping we can carry over some of that momentum that we found in the last set into the rest of the week.”

UP NEXT

Carrollton: Travels to Indian Valley on Saturday.

Big Red: Hosts Minerva on Thursday.