The Jefferson City and Cole Camp volleyball teams saved the best for last Tuesday night.
In a wildly lopsided contest at Fleming Fieldhouse, the teams finally seemed evenly matched on the final point of the night.
However, the extremely long point went the way most of them did, as the Lady Jays won it to cap off Jefferson City's 25-4, 25-13 victory.
Needing to make several attacks before finally putting the ball down on a kill by Abby McKnelly, the Lady Jays showed off their conditioning by being relentless during the point.
"(Cole Camp) had great hustle," Jefferson City coach Chris Meyer said. "Those girls were diving all over the place and diving into each other. They were not giving up, they fought hard. But we've got some offensive weapons that allow us to put the ball down and earn those points when we need to."
Meyer added her team's fitness is a testament to a season-long amount of work.
"They're staying conditioned toward the end of the season - we're trying to find that balance of giving them rest but continuing to work hard, knowing that we've got some goals as a team and individuals that we want to keep working toward," she said.
But there weren't many long points early on, as the Lady Jays racked up nine of their 14 aces in the match in the first game. In fact, they got eight aces while jumping ahead 18-4 to start the match.
"The serving allowed us to get them out of system," Meyer said. "They just were not able to earn a lot of points."
The Lady Blue Birds then committed errors on five of the final seven points to end the first game.
The score was a bit closer in the second game, but Cole Camp couldn't ever mount much of a threat. In fact, the Lady Blue Birds didn't score their first point on their own serve until they trailed 20-8 in the second game.
"Give credit to our defense, both front row and back row," Meyer said. "They did not get a lot of points on us in the first or second game."
McKnelly led the Lady Jays in the match with eight kills and four digs, while Madison Bond had six kills while posting a hitting percentage of a whopping .857. Mackenzie Barrows dished out 17 assists in the win.
"We are starting to click," said Meyer, whose team improved to 19-11-2. "We had a couple good wins two weeks ago, last week we had two wins. We'll have a challenge on Thursday (against Helias), of course, but I think things are starting to come together for us."
She added the late-season surge is due in part to the team's comfort level.
"We've had the same lineup for a little while with Makenzy Kliethermes being out (due to injury) and changing the lineup because of that," she said. "I think the girls are feeling more confident playing with each other."
The Lady Jays will host Helias on Thursday, with the varsity match expected to start around 7:30 p.m.
In Tuesday's JV match, Jefferson City posted a 25-16, 25-10 win.
Jenna Massie had 18 assists for the Lady Jays (27-4-1), Mary Vandelicht had five digs, Cara Caby had eight kills and Mary Wehmeyer had seven kills.
Jefferson City won the freshman match 25-11, 25-5.
Olivia Hart had 21 service points for the Lady Jays (23-7-1), while Arielle Guitard had three digs.