The opening weekend of the season was a little up and down for the Jamestown College volleyball team.

The Jimmies - who play a grueling pre-conference schedule in terms of travel (over 2,200 miles) and quality of competition (6 ranked teams) - went 2-3 in Montana, splitting both Saturday and Sunday after opening with a loss on Friday.

"We knew going in we were trying some new things, with some new faces and that's going to lead to some inconsistency at times and that's kind of how things played out," coach Jon Hegerle said. "Obviously, we go in with the goal of winning each match, but it was also a situation where we are still trying to figure some things out and get on the same page.

"The bottom line is that when we were finished we wanted to feel like we were going in the right direction, and that we got better, and I believe we accomplished that."

As Hegerle said Sunday, "It does not get any easier for us."

It certainly does not. The Jimmies head to Orange City, Iowa on Thursday and face 20th-ranked Doane College Friday and No. 5 Northwestern on Saturday amongst four matches over two days.

The following weekend it's off to Irvine, Calif., and another daunting slate.

Rocky Mountain 3, JC 0

The Jimmies got their clunker of the tournament out of the way early, falling in three quick sets to Rocky Mountain, a team unranked, but getting votes in the NAIA poll.

"It was not good," Hegerle said of the lopsided 12-25, 12-25, 19-25 loss. "I thought we competed poorly, and prepared ourselves poorly to compete."

Shannon Fee's 13 kills was about the lone highlight. Kelsey Deragisch, one of four freshmen thrown into the fire, added 13 assists, 5 digs and 3 kills.

"We challenged the girls, particularly the seniors after the Rocky Mountain match to show some better leadership. ... And they responded," Hegerle said.

JC 3, Great Falls 1

The Jimmies did bounce back in a big way, beating Great Falls on its home floor.

The two teams had played in 2008 and '09 on a neutral courts in California, but the Jimmies won the final two games 25-21 and 25-22 to seal a 3-1 win.

"As poorly as we played against Rocky Mountain, that's how well we played against Great Falls," Hegerle said. "From both and effort and execution standpoint we played much better."

Sam Revering, who played well all weekend, had a big match. The senior from Fergus Falls had 19 digs, 13 kills and 4 aces. Katie Zent and Krysten Williams each had 15 digs. Jada Meiklejohn passed out 20 assists.

Carroll College 3, JC 0

The Jimmies traveled to Helena for Saturday's games and fell 3-0 to 25th-ranked Carroll College in the opener.

The Jimmies were competitive, but fell 17-25, 20-25 and 19-25.

"Carroll is a really tough team and we competed hard for about two-thirds of each game," Hegerle said. "What really hurt us is that we did not take care of easy balls. We committed a number of unforced errors and against a team like Carroll, you can't do that."

JC 3, Montana Tech 1

With the long trip home beaconing, the Jimmies finished with a 3-1 win over Montana Tech.

It wasn't perfect, but a solid way to close the opening weekend.

"It was our fifth match in 48 hours. You could see we were a little fatigued, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally," Hegerle said.

Fee capped her 74-kill tournament with 24 big ones, "Shannon was pretty much unstoppable all weekend," Hegerle said.