Lake Travis looked deserving of its No. 1 ranking Tuesday night at Seguin High School, handing the Lady Matadors a 3-0 defeat (25-16, 25-9, 25-11) in the home opener for head coach Robin Gerlich’s club.

The Lady Cavaliers (1-0), picked by most as the favorite to win the Class 4A state title in 2010, used their impressive height and athleticism to frustrate Seguin (0-2) all night, notching their first victory of the year while giving the Lady Mats their second loss in two nights.

“Lake Travis, they called us and wanted on our schedule and I don’t blame them,” Gerlich said after the match. “They basically have their whole team back minus one middle blocker and pretty much we have a whole new look. We played a really good team here tonight.”

Lake Travis began the match with an early 4-0 run in game one, although Seguin appeared to settle down quickly, eventually taking its first lead of the match at 10-9 following a kill from sophomore Erin Moore.

The Lady Matadors fought to keep the first set tied at 13 apiece, but from there, the Lady Cavs asserted themselves offensively, ending the opening game on a 12-3 run before scoring the first five points of game two.

Lake Travis looked to be largely on cruise control from that point forward, taking the next two sets without much resistance from Seguin, which showed its inexperience by committing a number of unforced errors.

“We just need to come back and regroup and we’re going to have to play at that level if we’re even going to compete at district,” Gerlich said. “And we know that so it’s going to take some time. A lot of these kids have played behind some other kids for a while and they’re going to find it’s time for them to step up.”

The Lady Matadors’ best plays of the night came from senior Lauren Muenchow, who paced the team with her seven kills and one block.

Darian Bugai delivered 12 assists from her setter position, with libero Karlee Scheel posting 10 digs in the loss. Moore, a sophomore, served up Seguin’s lone ace of the match, while Bugai and Megan Reiley finished with one block each.

The Lady Matadors will get little time to rest before hitting the court again, beginning their tournament schedule on Thursday with a tripleheader at the Westwood Varsity Showcase in Round Rock.

Gerlich said that her young team will simply have to adjust on the fly, as the caliber of opponents won’t get any less difficult from this point forward.

“We’ll probably play seven matches this weekend,” the coach said. “I did not schedule any easy tournaments, any easy matches so it’s not going to get any easier from here on out. But in order for us to make the playoffs, we’re going to have to do that, so it might not look like a real pretty record going into the district, but our goal is to get back in the playoffs in 2010.”

Seguin will face Caldwell at 2 p.m. on Thursday before squaring off against Pflugerville Connally an hour later. The Lady Mats will then wrap up their first day in Round Rock with a 5 p.m. contest against San Antonio Johnson.