DEVILS LAKE — For the first time in 2026, the Devils Lake volleyball team has lost a match.
Mere hours after the news of their No. 1 ranking in Division A, the Firebirds (12-1, 3-1) were swept by No. 3 Carrington (10-2, 4-0) at home.
“I think it takes some of that pressure off, honestly,” Devils Lake head coach Tangella Martinson said. “‘Cause we’ve never had an undefeated record, and I think that pressure was kind of eating us a little bit.”
Set scores were 21-25, 16-25 and 22-25 as Carrington remained undefeated against teams not named Langdon Area/Munich.
Each set was full of momentum swings — with Carrington ultimately having the last laugh.
“And that’s okay,” Martinson said. “I have some things that I would like to work on, but it’s things that I have seen in previous games that we had even won. Sometimes, I think we got caught up in that win-and-lose. There were a lot of really good things tonight; I feel like we kept the momentum with Carrington. But they’re smart players, so we’ve just got to work our defense around that.”
The first set was the consistently closest one. Neither team ever led by more than four points. Devils Lake had a 7-3 lead, and it was tied as late as 12-12.
Carrington won the next four points, which proved to be the difference. The Firebirds hung around but lost 25-21 after back-to-back kills by Calleigh Hewitt.
“I think their outside [hitter] put the ball in a good spot. She was switching it up from wide to inside the court, and that was kind of throwing our defense off a little bit,” Martinson said. “They were smart, but they also caught us on our heels when we shouldn’t have been. More or less, it was what we weren’t doing and what [the Cardinals] were doing.”
Devils Lake had a 6-0 run in the second set to take an 11-8 lead, aided by two aces from Riley Remmick and some resilient play up front by Kinley Johnson. But Carrington had a 5-0 run to take the lead, then finished the set on a 4-0 run. The Cardinals won 13 of the final 16 points to bury Devils Lake 25-16.
The Firebirds opened the third set with their largest lead yet: 8-2. But some errors let Carrington back in it, and kills from Harper Kollman and Mya Neis helped the Cardinals take over the lead once again.
Devils Lake won five in a row to go up 14-10. The Firebirds started playing crisper defense and also a better blocking game, as April Miller came up with a pair of blocks.
“I thought we put up a good block tonight once we started getting it figured out,” Martinson said. “That was good, but we just figured it out a little bit too late.”
Just when it seemed as though Devils Lake had gotten back in a rhythm, Carrington won nine consecutive points.
The set — and, in turn, the match — spiraled on Devils Lake in a hurry.
“I think we got caught on our defense a little bit,” Martinson said. “If you watched tonight’s game, you could see when we chose to play and when we decided not to play. That’s just that consistency thing that’s just something we need to work on. So that’s my biggest takeaway, is when we choose to play, we’re the better team. But we can’t just turn it off.”
Emma Hofstad found a late groove to help keep Devils Lake in the third set. Sara Kraft had back-to-back kills in the front row to make it as close as 22-21. But Carrington’s versatile game proved too much for the Firebirds, ending it on a kill by Hewitt.
The Johnson-Hofstad duo was limited to seven kills from each.
Elin Skaar had a team-high 16 digs, while Brynlee Wolf had 15 assists and Remmick added eight.
It was a balanced effort for Carrington: Unofficially, Neis had nine kills, Kollman had eight, Hewitt had seven and Maara Kutz had six.
The Cardinals, who were ranked ahead of Devils Lake in the initial poll two weeks ago, became the first team to knock off this year’s Firebirds.
“Anytime you lose or anytime you make a mistake, there’s somewhere where you can learn,” Martinson said. “So that’s where my takeaway is from here. I could sit here and I could pick apart everything they did wrong, but that’s not what I want to do. I’m gonna pick apart what they did right and how we can move on from it. We still have another game this week, and it’s certainly not over for us. I don’t do the pity party.”
Devils Lake’s stretch of three consecutive home region matches has come to an end. The Firebirds head to Grafton on Thursday for a two-point region match against the Spoilers (6-7, 1-2).
“I do feel good about playing Grafton,” Martinson said. “We watched them at the Central Cass tournament. I think if we just come in with a brand new energy tomorrow and then Thursday, we’ll be ready for them.”
After Thursday’s match against Grafton, Devils Lake gets a break from region contests. The Firebirds will compete in the Des Lacs-Burlington and Langdon tournaments, along with a non-region match against Nedrose, before they resume Region 2 play against Hillsboro/Central Valley on the road Oct. 12.
“I think it’s fun to try new things at those tournaments, maybe put somebody in a different position, kind of see where they play without all that pressure from them,” Martinson said. “These girls are hard on themselves because they care about what they do. But that pressure is sometimes a little too much. So the tournaments are kind of a fun way to get those positions played and that kind of thing.”