As usually happens when the Fatima Lady Comets and the Blair Oaks Lady Falcons get together in volleyball, the decision in the match can hang on a few key points.
Thursday was no different.
Fatima came out on top in those points and was able to capture a 25-22, 25-21 win at Lincoln University's Jason Gym.
"A couple plays were all that separated it," Fatima coach Mark Bockstruck said. "It was a good game for both sides."
You could tell it was going to be a see-saw match from the start. Blair Oaks won the first three points of the first game, only to see Fatima win the next seven.
The Lady Falcons fought back and tied it at 10, the second of five ties in the opening game. The last one came at 19, but the Lady Comets took the lead for good on the next point thanks to a serving error by the Lady Falcons.
Fatima scored the game's decisive point on an emphatic kill by middle hitter Courtney Kempker.
Blair Oaks coach Joy Northweather said her team had trouble getting in rhythm during the match.
"Serve-receive was a problem - we got into way too many slumps," she said. "We've had maybe two matches this year where we connected and could run an offense, and tonight it didn't happen again. We were out of sync."
It was the Lady Comets who appeared out of sync at the start of the second game, committing four hitting errors while falling behind 6-2. The last point in that stretch came on a kill by Blair Oaks' Alexa Stegemann, and it capped a run of five straight points for the Lady Falcons.
"You've always got to prevent things from snowballing," Bockstruck said. "We've got a thing of not wanting to let teams get three points in a row. They really try to stay focused and make sure that doesn't happen. I thought we did pretty good at that."
Fatima got a sideout on a kill from Shaina Boehm immediately after that, then got five straight points on the serve of Megan Werdehausen.
A kill by Blair Oaks' Ryan Dudenhoeffer ended that spurt, but Fatima never trailed again. The lead hovered around two or three points the rest of the way, until the Lady Falcons committed an error on match point.
"We're still having too many zero errors," Northweather said. "We're making errors that you can't recover from, and it's the difference in a ballgame."
She added some of those errors came from being out of position.
"We were out-of-system at least four times during the match, where we had people going to the wrong spot," Northweather said. "... You're happy it's still September and hope you can get it together, but you'd like to be a little closer than we are."
Tara Buthod racked up a match-high 10 kills to lead Fatima to the win, while Haley Luebbering added seven. Emily Keilholz had 13 assists and Courtney Wolfe had 12, while Buthod paced the team with two aces.
The Lady Comets saw the return of middle hitter Kenadi Huhn from a knee injury. Although she played in an unfamiliar spot, at right-side hitter, she managed to come up with three kills.
"I wanted to take it easy on her and make sure we protected that knee as much as possible," Bockstruck said. "That's why we had her on the right side, so we could limit her side-to-side movement. And middle blockers go up on every single ball, so she didn't have to go up as much. We wanted to ease her back."
The Lady Comets hope it's the first step in getting back to where they thought they would be following preseason workouts.
"We wanted to Kenadi an opportunity to get back on the court, because she hasn't been on the court for so long," Bockstruck said. "... Eventually our rotation will change and we'll got back to what it was before Kenadi got hurt.
"(Kenadi) showed she's rusty, but that's all right. We've got plenty of time to get her ready before districts."
Dudenhoeffer racked up six kills and eight blocks for the Lady Falcons, while Sadie Turner had 10 assists.
Fatima is now 17-3 on the season, while Blair Oaks falls to 9-3-2.
In the JV match, Blair Oaks notched a 16-25, 25-13, 25-23 win to move to 16-0 on the season. Jayde Peters had nine assists for the Lady Falcons and Maggie Savage had three blocks.
Blair Oaks won the freshman match 24-26, 25-14, 25-14. Jadyn Anderson had seven kills for the Lady Falcons (7-2-2), Sydney Nivens had four aces and Ali Juergensmeyer had nine assists.