The Carroll College volleyball took their first loss of the season in their early game of the Concordia, Irvine Tournament in California on Friday.

The Saints dropped their first match to Westmont (Calif.) 23-25, 25-20, 25-14, 25-21, before coming back to shut down San Diego Christian 25-19, 25-18, 25-11.

Carroll head coach Moe Boyle said that from the start of their first match, the Saints were shaky.

“In the set, we played OK. We didn’t play the way we know how, but we pulled out a win,” Boyle said. “As the second set got going our passing just kind of fell apart.”

Miscommunication caused the defense to falter as Christina Smetana and Haylee Otteson guided their offense through the middle.

“Offensively I think our middle has done an excellent job as you can see from the stats.”

Smetana finished with 14 kills and four blocks while Otteson finished with eight and nine, respectively.

Katie St. John and Kaitlin Tocci shared duties at setter. St. John finished with 13 assists and four kills, while Tocci had 11 assists, two aces and three kills.

Boyle said that Shannon Flynn also gave the team support, taking over a new role in the back row. Flynn has been an outside hitter in the past. She finished with five digs.

Still, the team didn’t have the solid performance that allowed them to go undefeated in the Frontier/DAC Crossover Tournament last week, good for a 4-0 record to start the season.

“One of our players said right when the match was over, ‘OK, our first-game jitters are gone,’ ” Boyle said.

They certainly were as the swept through San Diego Christian.

Smetana and Otteson performed as usual in front, scoring 16 and seven kills, respectively. But the big change came on defense where 57 digs, 24 more than they did in the first match, which was a set shorter.

Mary Mahoney led the team on defense with 20 digs while Maureen Frauenholtz added 13.

Frauenholtz also proved to have a magic bullet on her jump serve, miss just one in 18 attempts.

“We scored a lot of points with her back there,” Boyle said.

Ashley Lupfer, meanwhile, kept the team’s heads cool on the floor, the coach said.

Carroll will face off with the College of St. Mary (Neb.) this morning and and Hope International (Calif.) in the afternoon before heading to Azusa Pacific to watch their Carroll football team in its season opener at 7 p.m.

Westmont def. Carroll 23-25, 25-20, 25-14, 25-21

Kills 43 — Smetana 14, Otteson 8

Blocks 13 —Otteson 9, Smetana 4

Assists 28 — St. John 13, Tocci 11.

Aces 6 — Tocci 2

Digs 36 — Flynn 5

Carroll def. San Diego Christian 25-19, 25-18, 25-11

Kills 32 — Smetana 16, Otteson 7

Blocks 10 — Smetana 7, Otteson 3

Assists 26 — St. John 15, Tocci 11.

Aces 4 — Tocci 2

Digs 57 — Mahoney 20