Lawrence High found itself down throughout Saturday’s Joan Wells volleyball tournament and was unable to come back, losing all five matches, for a disappointing eighth-place finish.

In the final match against Blue Valley Northwest, the Lions went down early in the first game, eventually losing 25-21. The Lions would rebound to take the second game, 25-14.

In that game the Lions did not make the unforced errors that had plagued them in their other matches.

Once again however, the Lions found themselves playing from behind in the deciding game, losing 25-17 to end the tournament.

“I can’t imagine we were too tired,” coach Molly LaMere said. “It is not as if we exerted all of our effort in our other games. I think losing five games in a row starts to take its toll mentally.”

Blue Valley Northwest broke the match open midway through the final set when they build a six-point lead, thanks to good passing and finishing on spikes.

Playing from behind in nearly all their matches also took a toll on the Lions.

“I think it makes us more afraid to play aggressive and play to win,” LaMere said of the errors and playing from behind. “We want to make sure we are not making errors so we start focusing on that, and then we are not aggressive.”

The Lions have traditionally struggled at their home tournament, LaMere said, and it continued Saturday.

“I have no idea why that happens, and I would love to break that tradition,” LaMere said.

LHS struggled at times with unforced errors, often sending the ball long or wide, giving easy points to the opposition.

“We are playing good teams, but we usually shoot ourselves in the foot and just make unforced errors instead of making the other team play out volleys,” LaMere said. “We just need to work on being more aggressive and executing our game plan.”

The Lions would show signs of life in spurts, with Sydnei Tolefree using her long arms to spike the ball. However, it seemed that every time the Lions got something going they would make an unforced error or would have a spike blocked by the opposition.

“I thought we played well but there were just so many games but we just couldn’t put teams away,” Tolefree said. “It was frustrating because we had our moments and we just were not playing consistently.”

The Lions won just two games during the entire tournament losing to Park Hill South, Maize, and Shawnee Mission Northwest in straight sets.

“We saw a lot of good things happen for us at times,” LaMere said. “It just wasn’t something that we could do consistently and pull through to point 25 of each match.”

LHS worked on passing throughout practice last week, LaMere said, but the efforts fell short.

“If our passing is off it makes it really hard to run an offense and set up a block,” LaMere said. “We definitely need to work on that.”

The Lions hope to use their play against strong competition as a positive into the rest of the season.

“I think our defense has gotten a lot better we just need to get more stops on defense,” Tolefree said. “We need to stop making so many mental errors.”