MERRY HILL – Despite cruising through the first two sets, Lawrence Academy hit some turbulence here Friday afternoon.

The Lady Warriors fell behind 5-0 and eventually 11-5 in the third set before rallying to put the match away by a 25-17 final in the deciding set against visiting Greenfield School.

&uot;We’re starting to come together as a team,&uot; first-year coach Ed Clouse said. &uot;We’re still working out some kinks, but we’re getting there.&uot;

Friday was the team’s first match with a new shadow defense which Clouse went to after a Tuesday loss at Greenville Christian.

&uot;The girls are starting to pick up the defense,&uot; he said.

The Lady Warriors trailed 6-2 early in the third set with both of their points coming on Kathryn Taylor kills.

After falling behind 10-4, the Warriors got a winner from Kate Hodges and then rode the serve of Jenna Griffin to cut the lead to 10-8. In the process, Taylor and Nicole Biggs both had winners.

Trailing 14-11, the Warriors got a winner from Taylor before scoring two points off the serve of Biggs to make it 14-all.

It was Debbie Stotesbury that got the Lady Warriors back ahead, collecting a kill and then serving five consecutive points that weren’t returned to push Lawrence to a 20-15 advantage.

The Warrior defense took over at that point and led the team to victory as Taylor and Hodges both had kills in the final five points.

Overall, the Warriors got a big day from junior Kendall Street. She had 12 aces while Hodges recorded 17 kills and Taylor added 15 kills, four blocks and four aces. Stotesbury recorded five aces.

In her first action, Biggs had one aces and two kills.

The Warriors took the opening sets handily, winning by counts of 25-6 and 25-9.

They improved to 2-1 overall with the victory.