IRON RIVER — Both the Forest Park Lady Trojans and the West Iron County Wykons came into the first game of their annual home-and-home volleyball season on Tuesday looking to improve off sub-par performances in their previous matches.

Last week, Forest Park stumbled against Stephenson at home while West Iron was swept on the road by Hancock, and neither FP coach Bobbie Anderson nor WIC coach Konnor Bjorkman were thrilled with the way their teams had played.

So the question heading into the battle of Iron County at Charles Greenlund Gymnasium was which team would rebound the quickest. Turns out the answer was West Iron.

The Wykons started quickly, jumping out to a 9-1 lead in the opening set, and kept Forest Park on its heels most of the night with aggressive hitting and improved court coverage in their 25-16, 25-21, 25-19 non-conference victory.

West Iron senior middle hitter Calli Pellizzer recorded eight kills and junior Danica Shamion posted seven to lead the West Iron attack. Pellizzer, in particular, displayed an aggressiveness that her team needs to succeed.

“I knew that if I played it safe that we weren’t going to get the points, so I had to be aggressive to get those kills,” Pellizzer said.

That was exactly the message Bjorkman sent to Pellizzer and her whole group.

“Yesterday, we made some adjustments to our lineup just trying to get more aggressive in the front row, and I think we did that tonight,” Bjorkman said. “Last week we were flat. We weren’t attacking the ball. Tonight we attacked the ball well.

“It’s what I kept pounding them on. We have to come out aggressive, we can’t be giving them free balls, and we did a lot better with that.”

Meanwhile on the other side of the net, Forest Park started slowly with five straight errors to begin the match. The misfires became a theme.

“We had been playing well up until last week, but last week we got into a funk against Stephenson,” Anderson said. “I feel that West Iron showed up tonight and they were ready to play, they were energetic and had the momentum. We came in flat, we made way too many unforced errors and we were constantly trying to dig ourselves out of a hole.”

West Iron came out serving aggressively as well. Sophomore Haiden Gill fired two aces and Pellizzer and Kaylah Hill added one each as the Wykons took a 13-3 lead, forcing Anderson to use her first timeout.

The Lady Trojans never really got back into the set and Shamion closed out the opener with an ace.

Forest Park took its first lead of the match at 4-3 in the second set on an ace by freshman Elsie Williams. The Lady Trojans pushed their advantage to 17-10 on kills by Ema Stepien and Leah Feldhausen along with an ace from Audrey Franz.

Trailing 19-13, the Wykons fought back, going on an 8-2 run to knot the score at 21-all.

Gill recorded two kills, while Shamion and Kali Harty added one each for the Trojans. West Iron then scored the last four points of the set, which ended with an emphatic strike by Pellizzer.

“She’s hard on herself and sometimes she forgets what she can do,” Bjorkman said of Pellizzer. I think giving her those winning kills really pumps her up.”

The Lady Trojans started to look uncertain in their play as the Wykons went on their run. After they seemed to settle in while building their six-point lead, the Lady Trojans stumbled when West Iron mounted its comeback.

“When we get down, we’re having a hard time picking ourselves back up,” Anderson began. “You can see on the girls faces, if they make a mistake or two, they’re instantly defeated. You need to be able to shake those things off, and right now we’re not shaking those things off.”

The Lady Trojans took a 7-6 lead in the third set on a block by middle hitter Leah Feldhausen. The junior belted a cross-court kill to even the set at 14-all a bit later and kept her team within striking distance with a block and a kill later in the set.

Anderson said Feldhausen was her team’s most solid player in the match.

“She’s a very consistent player for us,” Anderson said. “She’s one of our key hitters that we go to when we need a point, she gets some nice blocks and she gets touches on the ball that help slow the ball down for the back row.”

The Wykons made their final push of the night with the third set knotted at 17. Shamion started the run with a kill before Pellizzer followed with a block. Harty then added an ace that deflected off the net before Pellizzer and Gill contributed a kill each.

Pellizzer then finished things with a tip kill to give the Wykons a one-up edge in the 2022 Iron County volleyball series.

“The energy was so amazing, and we all worked really good as a team,” Pellizzer said. “We really wanted to win.”