On a night marked by sadness, girls from six high school volleyball teams tried to set aside their collective grief for three hours Thursday night on the courts in both gyms at Prairie High School.

Before play started in the MVC/MAC Challenge round-robin matches, players from all the teams gathered solemnly, arm-in-arm in memory of one of their own, Iowa City West star and captain Caroline Found, killed in a moped accident two weeks ago.

The tragedy was compounded when the girl’s mother, Ellyn, died two days ago from pancreatic cancer.

“We grieve for the family,” said Prairie Athletic Director Rocky Bennett in calling for a moment of silent tribute.

Afterward, he noted, “It’s rough for all these teams, because a lot of the girls knew (Caroline).”

Teammates wore wrist bands in her honor as they sought brief respite from thoughts of a teenage death.

The Iowa City West girls, defending Class 4A state champions and ranked fourth in preseason polls, opened Thursday night with a hard-fought 2-0 win over eighth-ranked Bettendorf. The Wome of Troy then lost in a third-game tiebreaker to 13th-ranked Pleasant Valley and a 2-0 marathon match to unranked North Scott.

A referee who officiated the finale said it was hardly an upset for the Mississippi Valley Conference juggernaut.

“The Iowa City girls are just trying to regroup,” he said.

Third-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy, meanwhile, won all three of its matches against Mississippi Athletic Conference opponents in what Coach Michelle Goodall felt was an uneven performance.

“We played pretty well for it being early in the season,” she said. “We have a lot of things to work on, but that’s to be expected.

“The girls play better when they’re relaxed and have fun. As long as they play with confidence and stay loose, we’ll get better.”

The Cougars, led this year by seniors Naomi Pfeil and Allie Hutcheson, along with lanky junior spiker Alexus Rogers, are hoping to break their streak of finishing third in the state tournament the past three years.

The wins Thursday didn’t all come easily.  The Cougars beat North Scott in a 15-3 third-game tiebreaker, had less trouble with a 21-13 and 21-9 victory over Bettendorf and closed with a nail-biting 15-11 tiebreaker over Pleasant Valley.

“We lost a nice group of seniors from last year,” Goodall said. “But I saw a lot of good things tonight.”

Prairie assistant coach Lynette Stecklein was also encouraged by her host team’s outing in the season debut, even though they dropped all three matches by 2-0 margins.  The Hawks lost 24-22 and 21-17 to Pleasant Valley, 21-16 and 21-18 to North Scott and 21-16 and 21-19 to Bettendorf.

Pleased that her team could hold its own against ranked teams, Stecklein noted, “We were in every game right to the end.”