WESTPHALIA, Mo. - Using some deft serving, the Helias Lady Crusaders took control of both games early and went on to capture a 25-14, 25-15 win against the Fatima Lady Comets on Thursday night.
Helias' Ashley Dudenhoeffer unleashed some deadly jump-float serves on the Lady Comets, winning four straight points on the first service rotation of both games. A 4-0 lead in Game 1 and a 5-1 lead in Game 2 both translated into comfortable wins for the Lady Crusaders.
"Sometimes aggressive serves don't have to be rockets," Helias coach David Harris said. "They can be short, and we have some servers that can serve short very well. ... I tell these girls all the time, if something's working, keep doing it. That was working, so we just kept after it."
In the first game, Erica Haslag had a hand in the first four points. A short serve by Dudenhoeffer on the first point led to an overpass that Haslag put down for a kill. Another one led to Helias setting up an attack that led to a Haslag kill. The third led to another overpass and a Haslag kill, and Haslag had a block on the fourth point to keep Helias rolling.
"If she can do that early, or if any one of our players can do that early, I think it gives us confidence," Harris said.
Part of the problem for Fatima was the absence of all-region middle hitter Kenadi Huhn, who will go in for surgery today on the meniscus in her left knee.
"We practiced the past three weeks with Kenadi in, learning a rotation, and when we found out we didn't have Kenadi anymore, we had to learn a whole new rotation," Fatima coach Mark Bockstruck said. "The first time we did it was against Hickman, which was Monday. So we're still learning."
Bockstruck added he wasn't surprised to see Helias' early serving tactics.
"Dave is a smart guy - he knew he wanted to keep it away from our best passers, so he kept going short," Bockstruck said. "He saw success with it, so he kept doing it. I would do the exact same thing.
"We tried working on that a lot (Wednesday) in practice, but the girls need to see it in a game-like situation to really put it in their minds to know, "I really need to pay attention on every single serve.'"
Fatima eventually fell behind 7-1 in that game before creeping back to within 12-8 on a kill by Haley Luebbering.
But three straight hitting errors by the Lady Comets sparked a 6-0 spurt that put the Lady Crusaders ahead 18-10.
Helias ran the lead to 10 five other times before taking the 11-point win, with the final two points for Helias coming on kills by Lindsey Griggs.
"One of our weaknesses I think is that we don't usually start very strong," Harris said. "We kind of dig a little hole and then we think, "OK, now we need to start playing.' Then we have to dig ourselves out of that. We didn't have to do that tonight. We started fast in both games, which was nice."
Fatima held serve on the first point of the second game, getting a kill from Shaina Boehm for its only lead of the night.
Helias got a sideout on a kill by Laura Schieber, then got four straight points on Dudenhoeffer's serve to force a timeout by Fatima.
The Lady Comets eventually got within 5-4 after back-to-back kills by Luebbering, but Helias responded with eight straight points - three of them on blocks - to go up 13-4.
After Fatima burned its second timeout, the Lady Comets stopped the bleeding and kept Helias' edge around 10 points the rest of the way.
"We had one goal going in," Bockstruck said. "The girls know that I don't care about wins and losses, I just care about them not quitting. They needed a couple reminders in a few timeouts, but I thought they did fight until the end. I try to tell them, everything in season is nothing more than preparation for the postseason."
The match, which had a postseason feel thanks to a near-capacity crowd, had both coaches thinking about later in the season.
"This was a great environment for us to play in," Harris said. "It was loud and it was intense and it's just going to help us as we go down the road. They're a well-coached team, they're scrappy, they're going to do well in Class 2."
Bockstruck thinks the same of Helias' chances.
"I really expect Dave's going to see some good things this year in Class 3 and I wish them the best," he said. "It's a great program, a great group and we really like pretty much everybody on their team. It's good there's friendly competition there."
Luebbering had six kills for Fatima (2-1), which plays again Tuesday at Linn. Courtney Wolfe had seven assists and Paige Groner had four service points.
Molly Sandbothe led Helias (2-0) with six kills, while Griggs, Schieber and Haslag added four each. Dudenhoeffer dished out 19 assists, Haslag had three blocks and Blake Berhorst and Maddie Dunkman had four digs apiece.
The Lady Crusaders return to action Saturday when they host Springfield Kickapoo at noon and Republic at 3 p.m.
"(Beating) Waynesville (on Tuesday) kind of helped us for tonight, and this will help us for Saturday," Harris said. "... It should be exciting. I know it's a Saturday and there's a football game later that night, but we hope we get a big crowd to come watch, because it should be some exciting volleyball."
In the JV match, Helias captured a 25-20, 25-8 win.
Lexy Lamb had 13 service points and 10 assists for the Lady Crusaders (2-0), Bradi Berhorst had 14 digs and Maddie Neuner and Madeline McDaniel had two blocks each. Hannah Borchelt, Kelsey Schenewerk and Regan Bruns had three kills apiece.
Helias won the freshman match 25-15, 25-10. Alyssa Sullivan had 13 service points and six assists for Helias (2-0), Grace Twehous had four kills and Elisabeth Mealy had seven digs.