BIDDEFORD — Biddeford met an old nemesis on the volleyball court Thursday night.

And unfortunately for the Tigers, Greely was able to de-claw them again, taking a straight-set 25-21, 25-14, 25-23 victory.

The defeat ends a four-match winning run for Biddeford (6-5), while the Rangers (8-3) stopped a rare two-match losing skid.

“They were able to play a lot faster game with a lot more accuracy than we did,” Biddeford coach Mike Maldonado said. “We were not accurate and we for the most part we were on the back foot; we were not matching up to their speed, you can’t deny that.”

Greely had also gotten the better of the Tigers in five sets during the two squads’ season opener on Sept. 10, a match in which Rangers coach Kelvin Hasch said both teams struggled.

Hasch was much more pleased with the performance of his two-time defending state champs the second time around.

“We’ve started playing together,” Hasch said. “We had a really tough time that first time we met playing together, keeping a rally going. We’d get a point, give away two. We’ve been working pretty hard on playing as a unit and tonight we were able to start doing that.

“We’re starting to gel now. Tonight is the first night where we really started playing like we should be.”

The Rangers came out of the gates firing Thursday, winning five of the first six points and keeping that lead throughout on the way to a 25-21 win in the opening set.

Biddeford was able to stop the tide and build a 10-8 lead in set two thanks to a pair of kills from Alisha Proctor and one each from Bailey Cote and Jocelyn Moody, but Greely finished the set with a floury, winning nine straight points on the service of Hannah Butland to comfortably take a 2-0 lead with 25-14 win.

“I liked the way were passing the ball on target in the first two sets,” Hasch said. “Once that happens our setter could just start beaming balls to the hitters.”

Biddeford was able to more firmly find its footing in the third set, jumping out to an 18-11 lead on the back of three kills from Cote and the strong serving of Cote and Dalani Roy.

“They realized that they needed to get into the game and not feel sorry for themselves,” Maldonado said of set three. “The first two games they didn’t have what we call their game faces. They weren’t sure of themselves and were playing conservative. When you play conservative, you really don’t play to your potential.”

But after a Hasch timeout Greely turned things around as kills from Jordynne Copp and Emily Warnock and solid serving from Lexi Foster allowed them to close the gap to 18-17 and eventually even the set at 21 all thanks to an ace from Butland.

The teams then traded points to bring the score to 23-23, but a Warnock kill and a Tigers misplay on her resulting serve earned Greely the 3-0 sweep.

“I called timeout and told them ”˜You guys aren’t passing,’” Hasch said. “Once we started passing the ball, that’s what closed it out.”

Copp had a game-high nine kills for the Rangers, while Biddeford was led by Moody’s seven kills and Cote’s six.

“We needed to pass better; we didn’t pass as well as we could have,” Maldonado said. “We needed to play aggressive — even when you’re behind by three or four points you have to stay aggressive. We didn’t do that tonight. “They beat us fair and square.”

The road doesn’t get any easier next week for the Tigers, who travel to undefeated Scarborough on Tuesday before hosting one-loss Falmouth Thursday.

“Those are going to be very tough games,” Maldonado said. “We’ve already lost to both of them this season, I’m really hoping we can do a lot better this time. We’ll see how it goes.

— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323.