The first wins of the young campaign rolled in for the Washington volleyball team on Saturday when they went 2-3 at Grinnell’s tournament. 

The Demons came out on top in one of their three pool play matches by defeating East Marshall (21-16, 15-21, 16-14), but losing to Grinnell (24-22, 16-21, 12-15) and Fairfield (20-22, 21-16, 10-15). The orange and black got revenge against their Southeast Conference rival Trojans in bracket play by turning around to down Fairfield in three sets (15-21, 21-11, 15-8). That pushed the Demons to the silver bracket championship game where South Tama emerged victorious (14-21, 17-21). Freshman Leighton Messinger has impressed in her first varsity action and she led the team with 13 kills on the day to go along with 32 digs. Ella Greiner and Alex Murphy each had 13 kills and Murphy compiled seven blocks. Haley Mitchell set up a lot of the offense with 25 assists and the senior was successful on 40 of 43 serves with four aces. 

Washington moves to 2-4 and they travel to Burlington (3-4) tonight for the conference opener.