That was coach Sandy Arnold's concern as her No. 1 ranked Hillsboro Trojans prepared to face Halstead last Tuesday night for the third and fourth time in the young season.

"I don't like to play a team that many times," Arnold said. "First of all, it's hard to beat them, especially when the team is right on your door. It's also kind of hard to prepare."

Not to worry.

After winning 10 straight match victories on foreign courts, the Trojans opened their home schedule with a convincing sweep of the Dragons: 25-11, 25-15 in the first match and 25-15, 25-13 in the nightcap.

Arnold said she felt her team had two things that help prevent complacency against its familiar foe.

"They've given us fits in the first game of every match we've played them (previously)," she said. "That always helps me to say, 'Hey, you've got to be on your toes because you never know what they're going to bring to the table.'" That was one way to help motivate them.

"And I think playing at home was definitely on our side. The girls were ready for that, they were excited for people here to see them play-more than just mom and dad.

"That was a definite advantage we had."

And the Trojans exploited it, jumping to a 6-1 lead in the first game of the first match and eventually led before finishing with their largest lead of the game.

The second game of the match-and the entire second match, for that matter-followed the same theme: Trojan dominance against a Halstead team that has shown noticeable improvement from previous seasons.

In fact, the Dragons defeated Hillsboro in the very first game of the season to open the Mid-Central Activities Association preseason tournament.

The Trojans came back to win the next two games and claim the match. Since then, Hillsboro has won 22 of 23 games-including 16 in a row-and 11 matches to start the season 12-0.

The latest two wins against Halstead were the first to count toward league standings.

What pleased Arnold the most about the match is that her Trojans stayed on the offensive all evening instead of laying back and waiting for the Dragons to make mistakes.

"I also thought we did a little better job of covering (when a teammate attacks), but we still have some issues there I want to work on," she said.

"There are going to be teams that are going to block us, and we need to be able to pick them up. I think we're getting a little better there."

Arnold said she was able to play a lot of players against Halstead.

"Eventually I'm going to be glad I did because we're going to need experience down the road," she said. "If somebody gets hurt, or if somebody would be sick or missing, it's going to nice to have other options to look at because we have used them at some point."

Even though Hillsboro hasn't been pressed by an opponent since the MCAA title match with second-ranked Hoisington, Arnold said her team is taking no one for granted.

"We have a goal in mind of where we want to be at a certain time in our schedule," Arnold said. "We're using that as our big motivation. So whoever we play in between, they're part of that goal.

"We're not overlooking anybody, but we're using each match as a stepping stone to that bigger part of our goal."

Coming-Hillsboro was schedule to play at Marion for a pair of league matches on Tuesday.

League play continues this Tuesday when Hillsboro plays host to Smoky Valley. The first varsity match begins at 5:30 p.m.