Inspired Calvary gets volleyball victory

Calvary Lutheran's Brooke Rollins makes a return during Thursday night's match against Chamois at Trinity Lutheran Gym.
Calvary Lutheran's Brooke Rollins makes a return during Thursday night's match against Chamois at Trinity Lutheran Gym.

This one was for Jan MacLaughlin.

The Calvary Lutheran Lady Lions dedicated their victory to MacLaughlin, the mother of a Calvary student who recently passed away due to complications from breast cancer. Her funeral was held Thursday.

The Lady Lions wore pink in her memory and captured a come-from-behind 20-25, 25-15, 25-20 victory against Chamois on Thursday at the Trinity Lutheran gym.

"There's a lot of close connections from our players to that family," Calvary Lutheran head coach Nikki Kueck said. "It just means a lot to the girls to be able to win that tonight."

Calvary dropped the opening set 20-25.

"Our girls' heads weren't really quite in the game to begin with," Kueck said. "They had a lot else on their mind. It definitely affected the way we started off tonight."

The Lady Lions responded with a 25-15 win in the second set to force the decisive game.

"We were able to respond, not as quickly as I would have liked," Kueck said. "We finally started waking up, getting on their feet and moving a little bit better. Setting the ball up and making better choices with the ball, which was a good thing. That's what we needed to do to finish out that set."

Calvary Lutheran opened a 15-8 advantage in the third set and looked poised to run away with it.

Chamois responded with five straight points, and cut Calvary's lead to one a couple times, at 18-17 and 21-20.

Calvary closed out the game with four straight points to seal the victory.

Rebecca Thompson deftly tapped the ball over the net for the 22nd point, a Chamois error led to the 23rd, Katie Goodin's block scored the penultimate point and Thompson's ace ended the match.

"It's tough at some points when we make those mistakes," Kueck said, alluding to Chamois' rally to make it a game. "They're learning to work through them, and obviously they can push through and still persevere and win."

Goodin led Calvary with three kills and four blocks. Jessica Stark added six assists, Emily Layson contributed 12 digs and Krista Stanford and Jena Fischer registered three aces. Megan Abbott had 10 service points, while Stanford added nine.

Calvary (4-7) travels Tuesday to Niangua.