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HAYFIELD — The Hayfield volleyball team wasn’t able to dig its way out of some early holes in a loss to Medford Thursday night by scores of 25-23, 25-19, 25-17.

Medford (4-2 overall) never had any big leads, but the Tigers were able to stay in control for much of the match. 

Hayfield head coach Johanna Kruger was hoping her team would push a little bit harder on defense to force the issue against a tough Medford team.

“They’ve always been a strong team since I was playing in high school,” Kruger said. “It’s hard because they made a lot of errors too, but we made more than they did. We struggled on defense tonight. We’re usually a really scrappy team and usually we get a lot of balls, but tonight we were slow and hesitant.”

The Vikings (5-6 overall) had big chances in each of the first two games, but they weren’t able to make the plays they needed down the stretch. Hayfield pulled to within 24-23 on a Reese Bauman kill in the first game and the Vikings led 16-14 in the second game, but the Tigers held Hayfield to three points the rest of the way.

“I think we just needed to be a lot scrappier and we had to hit to our full potential. They tested us and they had a huge block as well,” said Bauman, who had 14 kills. “(Overall) I think we’re in a pretty good spot. We just need to play more as a team, play more scrappy and close the block. We have to do the little things that add up to winning.”

Hayfield stats: McKenna Chick, 19 digs; Haeven Skjervem, 19 digs, 2 ace serves; Reese Bauman, 14 kills, 2 digs; Natalee Hedyt, 3 digs; Autumn Bjornson, 5 digs; Allison Meier, 6 kills, 4 digs, 1 block; Ava Carney, 6 digs; Sydney Risius, 12 set assists, 10 digs, 1 ace; Anna Bamlet, 10 digs, 10 set assists, 1 ace