Trinity Prep finally has enough players to field a volleyball team after a three-year hiatus, thanks to its new affiliation with Kolbe Academy.

The Crusaders also have a patient coach in Jacinta Scheetz, a former two-year assistant at Christendom College in Virginia.

The next step is to get its 12 players — seven of whom are freshmen — to get some basics down and learn to play together.

In its second match of the season Thursday, Trinity Prep struggled with serving, serve-receive and passing as it fell to visiting New Life Christian-Marysville, 25-7, 25-8, 25-8.

“I only have one girl who has played volleyball before, so I’m really happy with the way they’re performing so far,” Scheetz said. “I’m seeing lots of good things out there. We just need to keep working on stuff. We need a little more experience, which you only get by playing.”

Redwood Adventist-Santa Rosa downed the Crusaders (0-2) in last week’s opener, 25-12, 25-17, 25-8, despite an eight-point service run by Claudia Gutierrez.

“Most of the girls haven’t played before so we’re still learning,” Gutierrez said after injuring her shoulder in Game 1 and sitting out the rest of the match. “It’s really fun because we’re getting to know the girls from the other schools and it’s making us come together more as a team.”

After Trinity Prep’s Maureen Muth made a tough dig for a point early in Game 2, New Life’s Sonya Singh served nine straight points to break it open.

Trinity Prep made the visitors work for one of Singh’s points with a long rally.

Another long rally followed the Crusaders’ only non-missed serve of the game, by Barbara Bakh, but New Life’s Katrina Cobb answered with a five-point service run.

“I was really proud of Barbara’s passing, too, and she made good plays at the net,” Scheetz said.

Both teams struggled with serving in the third game until New Life’s Haley Waters served up an 8-4 lead.

Singh started another service run, but Rachel Nelson ended it with soft hit to a hole.

A seven-point serving surge by Cobb, however, gave New Life a decisive 23-7 lead.

The Crusaders missed all but one serve in each of the last two games.

“Serving is something we’re working really hard on,” Scheetz said. “Some of the girls are pretty consistent in practice but get nervous in games. We need to learn to do things right this year, like serve overhand, so that next year we’ll be good. If we want to be a good team we have to start with fundamentals.”

Trinity Prep’s Mary Birdsall said her team has good setters who just need good passes to do their jobs.

“We just need to work on calling it, talking more and stuff,” she said.

The Crusaders will head to the Chico area to take on Paradise Adventist at 4 p.m. Monday.