The Nansemond River High School boys’ volleyball team has had a rough year against Southeastern District opponents, but it started off its conference-heavy portion of the schedule on a good note Tuesday evening — it got its first win of 2014.

The Warriors defeated visiting Denbigh High School in straight sets, 25-18, 25-22, 25-22.

NR coach James Vann said he has an expectation that the victories should start piling up with the remaining matches on the calendar.

“I don’t know why we can’t win every one of them,” NR coach James Vann said.

Helping contribute to that effort will be the growing maturity he is seeing in the Warriors’ performance. He said his team started passing the ball and attacking well on Tuesday, and it started to show patience with implementing offensive sets.

Vann said the deciding factor in the match was Nansemond River’s growing camaraderie. The team ate dinner together before the match, and it also showed a desire to get in more work.

“They wanted to practice before we played, which was unusual,” Vann said.

Warriors senior outside hitter Malcolm Nurse had 12 kills, his highest tally this year. Senior opposite hitter Zak McCarson had eight kills, and junior setter Davontrez Wallace registered 17 assists.

NR senior libero Ben Leonard, in his fourth year on the team, impressed Vann with his aggressiveness, racing to get balls that seemed out of reach, keeping volleys alive.

The coach also highlighted senior Lam Be.

“His serve was right on last night,” Vann said on Wednesday, estimating Be scored eight to 10 points in a row in one stretch of the contest.

Nansemond River (1-10, 1-2) visits Heritage High School this evening in a key rematch. The Hurricanes ended the visiting Warriors’ season last year in the conference tournament. Reminded of what the Hurricanes did, Vann said, “Yeah, I’d like to get ‘em.”