BIDDEFORD — Defending a state championship can sometimes be tougher than actually winning it.

It’s a lesson that the Biddeford volleyball team is learning so far in 2011.

In its toughest game to date, Biddeford lost a 3-1 decision to Scarborough on Monday night at the Tiger Gym. The loss drops the Tigers to 3-3 on the regular season.

The defending Class A state champions have hit a rough patch in their schedule, having lost three out of their last four games after starting the regular season off with a 2-0 record.

“My team is growing mentally, I think we have a lot of skill,” Biddeford head coach Ruth Shaw said. “It’s just those little tiny things that come with experience. Where to put the ball, making the serves, those are all just maturity types of things. I’m proud of them, we have to give a lot of credit of Scarborough. But we’ll come back.”

Scarborough, meanwhile, upped its record to 5-1 on the season, and are a favorite to dethrone Biddeford as state champions.

The biggest challenge all night for the Tigers was the play of Scarborough’s Brittany Bona, who may be the best player in the state. The 6-2 Bona led the Red Storm with 22 kills on the night, along with five service aces, to seal the win.

In six games played thus far, Bona, a senior, has 77 kills on the season. Bona said beating Biddeford has been a goal for Scarborough.

“This has been our goal all season,” Bona said. “We just want to show every team how we are.”

Shaw said it was tough to match up players to Bona, who provides both a height and strength advantage against her team.

“She’s their biggest player, she’s like a Keila (Grigware) from last year,” Shaw said. “When you have one of those big hitters and servers, we don’t have that this year, we had that last year. We enjoyed it when we had it.”

Biddeford took the first game, an emotional roller coaster, by a 26-24 score, giving the Tigers plenty of momentum. Katelyn Lebreux led the Tigers to the first win of the match, securing the win with an ace to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead.

“We were hitting on all cylinders in that game,” Shaw said. “It’s the first game that we had (Mariah) Hebert back, and she had a great game. She was a catalyst in that game.”

Hebert led the Tigers with three kills and a team-high 12 assists. Renee Trottier had six kills, while Lebreux added five kills.

For the next three games, it was all Scarborough. Led by the play of Bona, the Red Storm took a 20-9 lead at one point in the second match, before the Tigers made a comeback attempt, jumping the score up to 20-16 in favor of the Red Storm, thanks to kills by Trottier. But Scarborough would hold onto the lead, and win the match by a 25-18 score.

Biddeford began to have trouble keeping the ball inbounds for the next two matches, and Scarborough took advantage, winning the third match by a 25-16 score.

Bona sealed the fate of the Tigers in the fourth and final match, providing six kills, and leading the Red Storm to a 25-13 win.

“We really just wanted to push and put (the game) away,” Bona said.

The Tigers will try to up their record on Thursday on the road against Gorham. The Rams are 3-2 so far this season.

— Contact Dave Dyer at 282-1535 ext. 318 or follow on Twitter @Dave_Dyer.