When a coach takes over a program there is a grace period as the evaluation process takes place.

Erica Crismon had that opportunity when she held the first workout with the ALA-Queen Creek and one thing stood out right away.

“They were already great volleyball players and there was a great culture for volleyball here,” Crismon said of the first impression. “It was easy to walk into a team this good. But I wanted to change the mindset of ‘We’re one of the better 4A teams’ to don’t want to be even better?

“Don’t limit it to 4A, let’s go be one of the best teams in the state.”

And the Patriots, ranked No. 1 in 4A, have accepted the challenge and proved her right all season long. They reiterated it Friday night as ALA-Queen Creek handled No. 2 and rival ALA-Gilbert North, 3-1 by the scores of 25-14, 19-25, 25-18 and 25-18.

The Patriots improved to 19-5 overall, 12-0 in regular season and 5-0 in the 4A East Sky Region, while the Eagles dropped to 23-3, 9-1, and 4-1.

It was the first of at least two matchups this season and ALA-QC was in control for most of the night. After both programs were dinged a point to start the match for improper uniforms, the Patriots ripped off 12 straight points to go up 13-1 with Hayden Holden serving.

The lead grew to 15-2 and 20-8 as the home team was proficient and the visiting Eagles had too many forced errors – 13 – to essentially give the set away.

“The start of the match can’t happen that way,” ALA-GN senior Chase Grohman said. “That’s the first thing our coach (Troy Kates) called us out on. That was unacceptable. We can obviously do better.”

The Eagles played uncharacteristic in that first set and never gave themselves a chance in a road match.

“It shows you have to come into every gym ready to play,” Kates said. “Your attention to detail needs to be higher than no other. We came in and took some things for granted because we’ve been able to do it all year. We’ll learn from it.

“We’ll be back.”

To ALA-GN’s credit it came back to take the second set and led early in the third, but it was evident that the Patriots were playing at a high enough level that an upset was unlikely this time around.

“We won that second one and played strong in the third, but it was down hill from there,” Grohman said. “They played well and we didn’t.”

The Patriots moved their offense to the outside because of the strong play of the Eagles’ middle blocker defense as Johnny Reheis, Britt DeWitt, Lendal Hillan and Holman had a barrage of kills.

Throw in the power serves from Reheis and DeWitt along with Holman’s knucklers and ALA-QC was playing at elevated level that is hard to combat.

“We were able to get some good swings from the outside, our passing was on point, and our serves were making it hard for them to start their offense,” Reheis said. “We wanted to set the tone with a win, and I think we did that.”

The Eagles, led by Tate Willis, Landon Watts, Gunner Martin and Grohman, will get at least one more shot on April 28 if not two more should the programs keep their high rankings and play well in the playoffs.

It will be the next phase of this brewing rivalry.

“We know there is more to do,” Reheis said. “This (series) is always a bitter battle. We won, but we still have to work to do before we can say we accomplished anything.”

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