(Theresa Proudfit/Daily News photo) Kingsford’s Abby Terrian (7) and Iron Mountain’s Anslee Runsat (18) reach above the net as Lily Verrette looks on during volleyball action Tuesday at Iron Mountain High School.

IRON MOUNTAIN — Strong serving and good communication — Kingsford’s volleyball team had both — as they defeated Iron Mountain in straight sets Tuesday night, 3-0 (25-10, 25-10, 25-21) in non-conference action at Mountaineer Gymnasium.

Kingsford got out to a 6-0 lead on the serving of Grace Roberts and the Mountaineers called a timeout in an attempt to break their momentum. But the remainder of the set was all Flivvers as well, with a handful of other players strong in the serving rotation, including libero Emma Andrews who had a five-point run in the second set.

“Our serving is a really strong asset to our team,” said Kingsford head coach Jaclynn Kreider. “It’s something that we really spend a lot of time on in practice. We put the girls in pressure situations in practice, so we can see how they’re going to react.”

Kreider noted that Roberts’ serving helps the Flivvers get a jump early in matches. Senior Christy Glodowski finished off the Mountaineers in the second set, with three straight service points. In the final set, she continued with an eight-point serving run, erasing IM’s early 2-0 lead.

Until the final set, the Mountaineers couldn’t get much going offensively.

“The girls played on their heels the whole night, and did not communicate well together,” Newberry said. “And I don’t know why, but our confidence level tonight simply wasn’t there.”

Annslee Runsat was strong in the front row for the Mountaineers, as were Talia Wallis and Danika Varda for Kingsford. Varda, who comes off the bench for the Flivvers, plays with confidence at all positions.

“Annslee sees the floor very well, and has excellent timing with her hits,”Newberry said. “She’s a tremendous player.”

In the third set, Lexi Hagen had a four-point serving run for the Mountaineers Bella Rosenthal tried to claw the Mountaineers back into the set near the end with a five-point serving run.

“Bella is a tremendous server. She’s a technician, when she’s on, she’s on,” Newberry said. “The girls were over-anticipating and over-thinking where the ball was going to come from tonight, and it hurt us.”

Both schools had a very loud student section at each end of the bleachers.

“Communicating with our masks on, is something we’ve been working on in practice, since our loss last week to Marquette,” Kreider said. “It’s difficult to hear one another with the masks, so we’ve been trying to use non-verbal cues to one another.”

The Mountaineers’ West PAC Conference game on Thursday versus Hancock was canceled, so their next match is Oct. 6 at Kingsford. The Flivvers are off until hosting Houghton on Tuesday.

Iron Mountain won the JV match 2-0 (25-23, 25-11) while Kingsford won the freshmen contest 2-1 (25-22, 21-25, 15-11).