HIGHLAND — Every athletic team hopes to get to the point where it can say it's reloading every year instead of having to rebuild.

The Lone Peak Knights have been in that situation for nearly a decade as yet again they find themselves starting the season as the defending 5A state champions. And in their second contest of the season took on another foe with a similar resume, the defending 4A state champion Snow Canyon Warriors. The teams are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 to start the season and came into Thursday's match looking for a good workout.

Each team got what it was looking for as the Knights took a hard-fought battle 25-22, 23-25, 25-15, 25-14.

"Snow Canyon's good. They came to play and gave us everything we could ask for in a match," said Lone Peak coach Deanna Meyer. But in the end it was the Knights who took over and came away with a 2-0 record so far this season.

"We were up and down, but I thought we improved from the beginning of the match to the end of the match. We have a lot of options out there, but they're selfless players. They want to win and will do whatever they can to do it," said Meyer, who also noted that her team is loaded with athleticism.

That athleticism showed all through the match as Cami Richan took charge for the Knights in a tightly contested Game 1, finishing the game with five kills and the match with 10 kills and eight digs.

Game 2 was a little shaky at times for the Knights as the Warriors came on strong and forced the match to go to a fourth game behind some impressive play by some underclassmen. And it was a freshman that led the way for the Warriors as McKenzie Willey finished with 12 kills in the contest. Junior Taylor Murphey finished with 10 kills and some great leadership, and junior Christina Alisa added seven kills of her own. The only senior on the team, Jamaica Alisa, added a pair of service aces to her two kills, and sophomore Ciara Parker led the team from the quarterback position and added her own pair of aces

But it wasn't enough. The Warriors got through in Game 2, but the Knights came back strong in the third game behind the powerful arm of Ashlan Rogers, who finished with a match-high 14 kills, six aces and 14 digs.

"Ashlan is an athletic, dynamic player who plays hard, hits hard and serves hard. She's very competitive and even better this year than she was last year," said Meyer, as once again her team has a load of talent and can spread the kills around across a variety of players.

Whitney Johnson controls the net from the right side for the Knights and came away with four impressive blocks in addition to her six kills. Coralie Jarema finished with five kills, and twin sister Chloe Jarema added three kills as each finished with a pair of blocks.

And the team was led by setter Pianola "Nar Nar" Finau with 32 assists in the match.

Both teams will be looking to add to their loaded trophy cases this season with solid teams and athletic players.

e-mail: jolsen@desnews.com