Once Newman grabbed the lead Wednesday night, it didn’t give it up.

The Comets never trailed after getting ahead early in the first set of a 25-20, 25-13 win over visiting Mercer County in a Three Rivers Conference crossover match.

“We were feeding off each other, for sure,” libero Amaya Gomez said. “If we got a big kill, everyone was hyped and ready to keep going. Our defense was going crazy, everyone was going crazy, and I’m just very excited for the team tonight.”

Playing without starting setter Brooklyn Smith, who was on a college visit, Newman (5-11) shuffled Lauren McClain and Gisselle Martin into setter/hitter roles and spread the wealth offensively. Six different Comets combined for 16 kills and three stuff blocks.

“It was really fun to be able to support our team in a different way, and we’re glad we were able to help the team win,” McClain said. “We were a little nervous because Brooklyn wasn’t going to be here, but we knew that if we all worked together and we just played our best that we could probably pull out a win. So I’m just really happy that we worked together and kept pushing through things the whole game.”

Not to be outdone, Newman’s defense also shined at times. On at least four different occasions, the Comets increased their lead because they were able to keep a point alive by either digging a pass out of the net or chasing down an errant first touch and eventually sending it back to the Mercer County side.

“I’m just glad that we were able to keep hustling,” Gomez said. “That’s what our team has been working on a lot, and I’m really glad that we just kept going on every point and didn’t give up. We kept it going, kept diving, kept getting touches and kept the points alive no matter what. We were able to get it off the net right away and pop it back over and keep going.”

The teams traded points to start the match, then a McClain kill and a Bella Lanning ace made it 7-5. McClain added another kill and an ace, then Ruby Burger smacked a kill, Kennedi Shippert and McClain stuffed blocks, and Lanning served another ace for an 18-12 lead. A kill by Lanning set up the final surge to close the first set.

A Burger kill, consecutive errors by the Golden Eagles, then kills by Shippert and Lanning around a Martin block made it 8-3 to open the second set. Another Lanning kill pushed the margin to 11-3, and Mercer County never got closer than four the rest of the way.

Another Burger kill ignited a long service run by McClain that saw her deal four aces and included kills by Burger and Lucy Oetting that turned a 15-10 edge into a 23-10 lead.

“We just wanted to make sure that we all kept working together and supporting each other,” McClain said. “We knew as long as we did that, we’d be fine.”

McClain stuffed the stat sheet with 10 assists, 10 points, five aces, four digs, three kills and a block, and Lanning added four kills, five points, two aces and three digs. Martin finished with six assists, five digs, four points, a kill and a block, Burger spiked five kills, and Shippert chipped in two kills, a block and two digs. Oetting led the way with eight digs, Gomez had seven digs and four points, and Brooklyn Warren added five digs for the Comets.

Alayna Mitchell led the Golden Eagles with five kills, and Rylee Bigham had four kills and a block. Sarah Hofmann added three kills and three digs, Tessa Morrison also had three kills, Addison Tharp chipped in four assists, and Leah Collison served a pair of aces.

“We definitely struggled on our serve receive and a couple of other things, and we’ve got to tone some things up,” Mercer County coach Lexi Stropes said. “Another bump in the road, but you keep on moving forward with the season.”