GYPSUM — As much as it hurts to lose two volleyball games by a combined four points, there’s no better time to do it than now for Eagle Valley.

The Devils came out fired up and played solid for three games, but ran out of steam in the final game, falling to non-league Grand Junction Central, 23-25, 27-25, 25-23, 25-18 in Gypsum Tuesday.

“I don’t want to lose,” said Devils coach Rob Crawford, “But in close games — that’s apparently where we need practice. We need to learn how to finish a game. There’s something clicking in (the girls’) heads that says we can’t win, and they have to know we can win. I thought we had the better firepower of the two teams.”

Grand Junction, a 5A team, weathered some early jitters and aggressive play by 4A Eagle Valley.

“We made a few mistakes on our end,” said Tigers coach Beth Nelson. “We missed so many serves tonight. I think they’ll be serving 2,000 serves tomorrow. Overall, the biggest thing was Eagle Valley was serving us pretty tough and getting us out of our offense and once we got a hold of their serves, it helped us out.”

And even when the Tigers had to work the ball out of system, they found some holes in the Eagle Valley defense.

“They got very crafty and smart and started dinking a lot (of shots),” Crawford said. “We had a hard time getting to the ball, figuring out who was going to get it.”

For the first three games, the teams slugged back and forth, with plenty of powerful kills and blocks mixed among the usual early-season miscommunications. In the fourth game, as some of the Grand Junction tips and soft hits started to fall in empty spots, Eagle Valley’s spirit somewhat deflated.

“We let it get to us,” said Whitney VanVoorst, one of the Eagle Valley setters. “When we would make an error, the whole team would fall apart and we weren’t able to come back.”

But most of what came from the Devils in the first three games — spread out production, scrappy defense and powerful serving — is an improvement over early-season play from last year.

In the second game, the Devils took control and built a 12-8 lead before a fire alarm caused about a 20 minute delay.

“We were good until that alarm went off,” Crawford said, half jokingly. “Apparently we’re afraid of smoke.”

The Tigers did come out of the break with three straight points, although the Devils were able to get to 20-16 before the Tigers scored six straight points.

To start the third game, Eagle Valley built a 6-0 lead before the Grand Junction caught up at 8-8.

“We came out really tough ... but then we let them get a lead on us, and it was harder for us to come back,” VanVoorst said.

Both VanVoorst and Kelsey Foster set well for the Devils, although many errant passes made their way over the net and into the easy kill range of Grand Junction

“We tried to capitalize on free balls,” Nelson said.

“We passed well in game two, but we had six good passes in the entire (third) game,” Crawford said. “That’s not good enough.”

Eagle Valley was able to adjust to Grand Junction’s big middle blocker, Amy Kame — who led all players with five solo blocks.

“On the right side, we were trying to cut our hits at hard angle to avoid the blockers,” VanVoorst said.

The Devils spread out scoring among several hitters, including Angela Phillips, Whitney Wright, VanVoorst, Ryanne Wilson and Foster.

Kame had seven kills, while Grand Junction’s Christa Kenny and Haleigh Higgins tied for a game-high nine kills.

Crawford is thankful that the Tigers dished up setter dumps, out-of-system hits and tight-angle kills.

“Lucky for us, they threw some curveballs for us and we have something to work on tomorrow,” Crawford said.

Additionally, the Devils will look to limit errant serves, especially during rallies.

“That’s one spot we’ve really been doing well in,” Crawford said. “We’ve limited our serving errors — two per game has been the most so far. Tonight we had four.”

The Devils, who after a tournament over the weekend in Aspen against 2A and 3A opponents, have a week off before opening the season hosting Battle Mountain on Tuesday.

“What happened (last night) was a good thing. It gave us lots to work on,” Crawford said. “I’d love to schedule five 5A teams before (the regular season).”

Sports Writer Ian Cropp can be reached at 748-2935 or icropp@vaildaily.com.