Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Cathedral’s Sydnee Helget (left) and Lily Franta (6) block a spike from Cleveland’s Grayce Kortuem (13) on Thursday night at Cathedral High School.

NEW ULM — The good news for New Ulm Cathedral volleyball team after its season-opener with Cleveland on Thursday night was that the Greyhounds showed persistency.

The bad news was that they also showed too many errors and it proved costly.

The Clippers topped the Greyhounds 25-19, 14-25, 25-20, 16-25 and 15-12 in five sets of nonconference volleyball action at Cathedral High School.

While it was only the first match of the season, the Greyhounds have an experienced lineup. And Greyhounds head coach Becky Wilfahrt expects that experienced lineup to keep it clean on the court and limit unforced errors.

“We have a lot of experience out there and there are errors that we shouldn’t be making anymore, and that’s what I’ve talked to them about,” Wilfahrt said. “First match of the year, I get that, but when you’ve been a starter for three years, you shouldn’t be making those errors anymore. We talked about that in between games, it was just little things and little things are what made the difference, because we gave away a lot of points, especially in that last game.”

The Greyhounds were also without one of the Tomahawk Conference’s best setters in Emily Schommer, who is currently out with an injury. Annie Edwards filled in nicely, however, with 37 set assists.

“I thought she did a nice job,” Wilfahrt said of Edwards. “It’s pretty big shoes to fill. She has no varsity setting experience coming into this year, and it was a big game, but I thought she did a nice job.”

Sydnee Helget led the Greyhound attack with 15 kills and 2 1/2 ace blocks, while Lily Brennan and Megan Haala each had 10 kills. Lily Franta had nine ace serves.

After dropping the first set, the Greyhounds cleaned things up in the second set and went on a 7-0 run to lead 14-9. During the run, Helget had two kills and an ace block.

The Greyhounds finished the set on a 6-1 run, getting a double block from Brennan and Edwards and a kill by Haala during the run.

The Greyhounds struggled in the third set and trailed 20-12 after a 5-0 run but cut the deficit to 21-18 late on a block by Helget. The Clippers held off the comeback, though, and ended the set on a kill from 6-foot-1 middle hitter Emily Kern.

After a cleaner fourth set from Cathedral that saw it lead by 11 at one point, the Greyhounds ended the set on a kill by Haala and a Cleveland attack error, forcing a fifth set.

The Greyhounds led 4-2 at one point in the fifth set before the Clippers quickly re-took the lead and won after three late kills from Kern.

The Greyhounds (0-1) have a quick turnaround when they host Madelia on Friday night.