The lyrics of ‘Better Now’ by Post Malone rang throughout the gym before the opening serve between South Mountain and Central.

South Mountain, coming off a fresh win against Fairfax, thought it could be “better now,” especially against an 0-10 Central team.

But things got worse as Central defeated the Jaguars 3-1Tuesday night.

The Bobcats earned their maiden victory of the season, improving to 1-10, while the Jaguars continued in their free fall, now with an overall record of 2-9.

South Mountain coach Paula Spratlen-Mitchell said the loss was more reflective of the mindset of her players rather than physical inabilities.

“My girls played tentative,” Spratlen-Mitchell said. “They played afraid to make a mistake so they were more uptight than they needed to be.”

Central easily took the first set 25-18. South Mountain bounced back, winning the second before Central continued to dominate winning the third set 25-20 and closing out the victory in a closer fourth set 25-22.

The Jaguars were without key players outside hitter Janae Gwan and middle blocker Monica Humphrey. Spratlen-Mitchell admits her team struggled with the changes, leading to mental errors on the court.

“I believe they were thinking about the girls that were not here,” Spratlen-Mitchell said. “They were uptight in key moments and we lost the momentum because of a drop ball. We lost the momentum because of a net call or something like that so we couldn’t maintain our momentum.”

Normally senior Cyerra Taylor starts at the setter spot, but instead found herself playing outside hitter. Although Taylor and Co. helped their team win its first game Monday against Fairfax without Gwan and Humphrey, this game turned out differently.

“Monday, we had a game and we didn’t have Monica (Humphrey) or Janae (Gwan) and we won. We had the chemistry,” Taylor said. “I think it was just today and we lost the outside hitter and I became the setter.

“It did knock us out of our momentum but what we need to learn to do is to play any position, play it well and to play it better than the team were playing against.”

Junior defensive specialist Destinee Bigman added: “Janae is our tallest hitter, and she can hit on the outside and get a point like that. We needed them.”

The Jaguars hope this lossmotivates them going into their final stretch of the season. Spratlen-Mitchell sees this as a learning experience for the diverse squad.

“We’ll use this as a learning experience and they just know they need to take charge when they have the opportunities,” Spratlen-Mitchell said.

The Jaguars look to put this game in the rearview mirror when they take on Metro Tech Tuesday at 6 p.m.