It took a little while for the offense to get going for the Helias volleyball team in its season opener.
But once it did, it was something pretty to watch.
Playing the first varsity contest in the newly refurbished Rackers Fieldhouse, the Lady Crusaders overcame an early hiccup and captured a 25-16, 25-15 win Tuesday against the Waynesville Lady Tigers.
Helias racked up seven errors while falling behind 11-9 to start the first game. But the Lady Crusaders won 16 of the next 21 points to close it out.
"It's one of those things you expect in the first match of the year, but I wasn't expecting like three or four errors in a row (to start the match)," Helias coach David Harris said. "The first game, the adrenaline is going. Most of those hitting errors were out-of-bounds, so some of that was adrenaline and some was timing issues."
After falling behind 11-9, the Lady Crusaders got a sideout on a kill by Tory Wiley, one of her match-high nine kills.
Setter Ashley Dudenhoeffer followed with a kill and Lindsey Griggs added another, and after a Waynesville hitting error, Maddie Dunkmann had an ace to give Helias a 14-11 lead. The Lady Crusaders never trailed again the rest of the match.
"In addition to hitting, I thought our serve-receive was a little shaky in that first game," Harris said. "After that, it cleaned up pretty well.
Overall, for a first match, I'm kind of pleased."
Wiley had kills on Helias' final four points of the first game as the Lady Crusaders notched the nine-point victory.
Helias then got off to a great start in the second game, racing out to a 4-0 lead. Griggs had a kill, Dudenhoeffer had an ace, Erica Haslag had a block and the Lady Tigers had an error during the spurt.
Waynesville never got any closer than three the rest of the way, and Helias took a 10-point lead on three different occasions.
In addition to Wiley's nine kills, Haslag added five as Dudenhoeffer dished out 18 assists. Blake Berhorst had eight digs and Haslag led the team with two blocks. Dudenhoeffer had nine service points, including three aces.
"Waynesville has some pretty good athletes playing," Harris said. "They've got a lot of experience - last year they took Jeff City to three games in the district championship and they've got most everybody from that team. What do they call them in football? The non-conference cupcake? Waynesville is definitely not in that category."
The Lady Crusaders return to action Thursday when they travel to Fatima.
"It was a good warmup for us," Harris said. "We've got Fatima on Thursday, so that will be tougher. I watched them play Monday against Hickman and they're very scrappy."
In Tuesday's JV match, Helias captured a 25-10, 25-16 victory.
Laura Vanderfeltz had three aces for the Lady Crusaders, Hannah Borchelt had four kills, and Lexy Lamb had 10 assists and three digs. Ella Ward also had three digs, and Maddie Neuner had one block.
Helias rolled to a 25-7, 25-7 win in the freshman match.
Kendal Hagenhoff had 14 service points, including eight aces, for the Lady Crusaders. Grace Twehous had 10 service points, Alyssa Sullivan had seven assists, Kelsey Brester had three kills and two digs and Elisabeth Mealy had two digs.