JEFFERSON — The Lakeview High School volleyball team took its first step toward its goal of winning a district championship, as the fifth-seeded Bulldogs topped 12th-seeded Hubbard, 25-14, 25-14, 25-19, in the first round of Division II play Tuesday night at Jefferson.

“We’re going to need to improve our serve receive and our passing to reach our goal of winning the district,” said Lakeview senior setter Lexi Inman, who finished with 12 assists against the Eagles. “We weren’t real sharp tonight, so we need to maintain our focus and be on top of our game moving on.”

The win was the seventh in a row for the Bulldogs, who improved to 18-4 and will play fourth-seeded Perry in the seond round on Thursday. Perry breezed past 13th-seeded Painesville Harvey in the second match Tuesday before eighth-seeded Niles fell to ninth-seeded host Jefferson 3-2 in the final match of the tripleheader.

“We lost some focus, and that happens sometimes, but we can’t have that again in the tournament,” said Lakeview coach Heather Guthrie, who was serenaded by her players on her birthday and was enjoying cupcakes afterward. “We are normally much better at serve receive and we’re strong at serving. We’re also a pretty good club in terms of passing.”

Lakeview lost its first three matches of the season but has only one loss on its resume since, a 2-0 setback against Hudson in a quad-meet on Sept. 21.

“We have two freshmen who were stepping into starting positions and it took us some time to get acclimated,” Inman said. “Once we bonded and we knew where everyoone should be and we gained trust in one another, things sort of took off from there.”

Guthrie agreed that early cohesion has allowed the Bulldogs to get stronger throughout the season.

“The girls are on the same page now, from our freshmen — Tara Lytle and Margret Pavlansky — to our five seniors,” she said. “That made all the difference in the world and we’ve gained confidence and momentum since then.”

Teagan Pearce scored 10 points to lead Lakeview, with Bianca Naples and Kayla Beil adding three aces apiece. Lytle led the way at the net with eight kills and Beil added seven digs.

Hubbard put up more of a fight in the third set.

“We were really nervous early and it looked like we weren’t playing with a lot of energy because of the nerves,” coach Bob Calvin said. “But I want to commend the girls for putting up a fight in the final set. We’re a pretty young team and we don’t have a lot of quickness and that’s been one of our downfalls all season.

“But I thik we can build on this and we’ll see what’s in store for us next year.”

It was the Eagles’ third loss of the season to Lakeview. Hubbard, which finished 6-16 overall, went 5-9 in the Northeast-8 Conference and was swept by Lakeview, which won the conference at 14-0.