Macon East showed why they are reining the 2A state volleyball champions in a straight sets victory over Morgan Academy on Tuesday afternoon.

The Senators, who lost to the Lady Knights in last year’s championship game, were over powered throughout the match, despite fighting valiantly to keep scoring chances alive and never quitting.

The Knights breezed through a 25-9, 25-15, 25-13 victory, showing they might the talent back to repeat as state champions.

Meanwhile, the Senators, who have an impressive volleyball history of their own, have a lot of work to do to get back to that level.

“We have to work on confidence, knowing where we are supposed to go on defense,” Senators head coach Jennifer Moore said. “Defense was pretty good in the beginning of the first game and then Macon East turned up the tempo on us. “

Moore said her team might have been a little bit overwhelmed in the early stages, as Macon East started capitalizing on scoring opportunities and started to build a quick lead.

“We kind of shut down a little bit,” Moore said. “That was the first time we’ve really seen a team that can hit like that at us. I think we just got intimidated early on.”

The Senators never quit or showed any signs of letting down. Morgan ignited the crowd a little bit in the third set, when down 24-8 the Senators rallied to score five straight points.  Unfortunately, the deficit was just too large to overcome.

“There towards the end of the third game we started to pick the tempo back up, but at that point we had already dug the hole so deep that we couldn’t get back out,” Moore said.

Moore said she is using this game as a “learning tool” as she tries to help her team continue to improve.

In 10 games this year, Moore said she has seen a lot of improvement from where her team was before the season and where it is now.

“I am seeing progress as we go. They are learning to work better together,” Moore said. “I even changed up the rotation [in the last game] to move people to different places in the order and they adjusted to it well.”

Morgan plays at Meadowview Christian Thursday at 4 p.m. The Senators next home game is not until Sept. 9, when Southern travels to Morgan Academy.