LYNNWOOD — The early part of the season hasn’t been a cakewalk for Edmonds Community College’s volleyball team.

Then again, with an influx of newcomers, the Tritons weren’t necessarily expecting everything to fall into place after a couple days of practice.

Two weeks ago, Edmonds traveled to Spokane for a tournament and returned home with a laundry list of items to work on.

At the top of the list is simply getting to know each other’s nuances.

“I think with every team if you have a bunch of new people, you’ve got to work that much harder to be a team,” said sophomore co-captain Jenna Huston (Lynnwood). “We’re adapting well to each other pretty good right now.”

Edmonds coach Bill Kellogg actually is pleased to have five players back from last season, a number he considers a good nucleus from which to build from for a community college team.

“If you’ve got five returners, you’re in pretty good shape,” he said.

The players describe the Spokane tournament as a learning experience. The Tritons pulled off a few upsets but also took their lumps.

“We played some really good teams, which I think makes us better when we play teams that are more (experienced) than us,” Huston said.

While acknowledging that the tournament was tough, Kellogg saw enough from his team to ease his mind about the upcoming season.

He expects Edmonds to contend for the Northern Division title.

“What I saw there (is) once we get into the season we’re going to be OK,” Kellogg said. “We looked at the toughest teams. We played the toughest teams in the league and when (we were) healthy playing them, we did OK … we stayed tough.”

Huston also is encouraged by what she’s seen so far from the team.

“Our outlook is really good,” she said. “If we keep working hard together, I think we have a really good chance of going (to the playoffs).”

In a Sept. 17 non-conference match, Tacoma edged Edmonds 31-29, 30-25, 12-30, 30-25.

Co-captain Kristie Petersen saw significant improvement as contrasted with the team’s play in Spokane.

“There was improvement there but that was a team we shouldn’t let beat us,” Petersen said. “But we did because we could not execute. I do believe we worked on all the things, all the weaknesses we had.”

A key area that needed shoring up was Edmonds’ defense. To start out the season, the Tritons had a bad case of what Kellogg refers to as “freezer burn.”

Kellogg uses that term when his players just watch the ball hit the ground and do not make a move for it because their feet were seeming frozen to the ground.

“We’ve worked on that,” Petersen said. ‘We can actually move toward the ball and be able to read (the offense). There is none of that freezer burn and if there is we pretty much fix it right away.”

Kellogg also wants to see better execution on offense, though the team’s serving is strong.

Freshmen Danielle Leong (Issaquah) and Kayla Drewry (Riverside) are sharing the setting duties with most of the offense coming from Huston (5-foot-9), Peterson (5-8) and sophomore Danielle Selvidge (6-1, Cascade).

“We have a couple of big girls, three or four in the middle … but even the short girls, they’ve got hops,” Huston said.

Petersen was surprised by how well the new players have fit in with the returners.

“We are all meshing together really well,” she said. “I expected them to not know anything but (they) just picked up everything so quickly and everyone has learned so much in the past three weeks. I am amazed.

“We’re just like goofballs but we get serious on the court. We know each other’s limits and we’re just starting to trust each other on the court.”