HILLSBORO (NewsDakota)- The difference between teams who are good and teams who can be great is typically how things go when it is clearly not their night.

The Carrington Cardinals began a frantic weekend of volleyball with a 3-2 (25-16, 23-25, 25-15, 19-25, 15-6) win over the Hillsboro/Central Valley burros on Thursday night at the Hillsboro Events Center.

The first set went just fine as Carrington fell behind 2-1 and proceeded to score ten of the next eleven points through a 9-0 run by Harper Kollman and the Cardinals (12-2, 7-0) never looked back.  But the Burros (4-9, 1-6) responded in the second set as Paige Cotton and Abigail Anderson combined for seven kills to level the match.

Carrington again went up a set in the third behind the hitting and blocking of Maara Kutz (eleven kills, nine blocks) but H/CV rolled in the fourth behind the serve of Sophomore Chloe Theis, forcing a fifth set, which the Burros have now played in five of their last six matches.

The Cards fell behind 3-0 before a 5-0 run on serve by Kollman, who had five of Carrington’s thirteen aces, and they never trailed again in staying unbeaten in the region.

The Cardinals take part in the prestigious Laker Invite starting Friday in Des Lacs Burlington, as part of Pool D with Trenton, Our Redeemer’s, Linton-HMB, and May Port-CG.