OAKLAND — After a legendary season a year ago, Dan Juilli wasn’t in the mood to call the 2024 season a rebuild. Still, after graduating a legendary senior class, he knew the Messalonskee volleyball team’s transition could have some hiccups.

Those hiccups certainly showed early as the Eagles followed last year’s 15-1 campaign with a 2-4 start. Yet as the season has progressed, a new senior class has progressed with it, progression that showed Tuesday as Messalonskee claimed a sixth consecutive win with a 3-0 (25-13, 25-20, 25-18) victory over Gardiner.

“I’m just so proud of our senior leadership,” said Juilli, Messalonskee’s second-year head coach. “We talked about, ‘OK, we don’t want to rebuild; we want to reload,’ but when you graduate four all-state players, that’s not easy. It all starts with those girls; they’ve really stepped up for us.”

Seniors Sofia Derosby (18 digs), Ava Perrino (two aces, seven kills, 13 digs) and Olivia Thomas (three aces, four kills, 12 digs) produced key efforts for Messalonskee in the senior night victory. Junior Kelsie Murray also had a big game for the Eagles with 10 kills and six blocks.

“I think we finally learned how to play together, just keeping at it and playing during practices,” Perrino said of Messalonskee’s 2024 turnaround. “We just keep having fun, and I think that’s really pulling us together. We have such a good bond altogether.”

Messalonskee (8-4) controlled the opening set from the jump, establishing a 5-2 lead and pushing that advantage to 11-5 before Gardiner called its first timeout. That timeout did little to stop the Eagles, who responded to two straight points from the Tigers with five of their own en route to a first-set victory.

Although Gardiner (8-5) started out much stronger in the second set by taking a 5-1 lead, Messalonskee recovered quickly to bring the game to an 8-8 tie. The Eagles then went on a 13-7 run to take a 21-15 lead, and while the Tigers earned some key points late, two serves into the net proved fatal as Messalonskee made it 2-0.

Messalonskee was strong again to begin the third set, jumping out to a 15-6 lead. Gardiner was resilient to cut the deficit to four points on two occasions (18-14, 21-17), but could not get any closer as the Eagles stopped the Tigers’ runs at three straight points both times to secure the win.

“We know how to come back (when the other team goes on runs); we’ve done it so many times before,” Derosby said. “We go off of seeing our bench’s energy and even our coaches’ energy, and that helps a lot.”

The win secured a third straight winning season for Messalonskee, which is in only its fourth season of varsity play. After a two-win campaign in its inaugural season in 2021, the Eagles now have a senior class that’s played four seasons of high school volleyball — and is now 35-8 over the past three years.

“It’s been a lot of fun, definitely,” Perrino said. “Coming into it our freshman year was definitely nerve-wracking, but coming into our senior year and playing and knowing how much people love it now, it’s really exciting.”