Helias downs Hickman in volleyball

When the Helias Lady Crusaders needed their focus, they found it.

It wasn't the prettiest of wins, but Helias overcame a handful of distractions and posted a 25-17, 25-14 volleyball victory Tuesday night against the Hickman Kewpies at Rackers Fieldhouse.

"It's Homecoming week, where the players are getting pulled in a lot of directions," Helias coach David Harris said. "And we went with a different lineup than we've used before. And we took a couple of days off last week.

"Given all those factors, we did OK."

It looked like Helias would romp to a win early as the Lady Crusaders vaulted to a 6-0 lead in the first set. It was a 10-3 Helias advantage when Hickman started showing some signs of life. The Kewpies cut the deficit to three points on three occasions, the last at 16-13.

"Hickman was doing a good job of picking things up, waiting for us to make a mistake," Harris said. "They were playing pretty well."

But Helias regained its edge, scoring six of the next seven points to take a 23-14 lead. The teams then swapped points as Helias closed out the eight-point win.

"We started out well, then we let down, then we started playing again," Harris said.

Aided by a penalty point on Helias due to a lineup error at the start of the second set, Hickman jumped out to a 4-2 lead. Helias came back to tie it 5, then started to pull away, aided by some Hickman mistakes.

"I wrote the lineup down wrong, I was trying to get people in that don't play a lot," Harris said. "It was just one of those things."

Hickman (6-11-2) trailed 13-9 midway through the set before hitting three serves into the net in a seven-point span as Helias increased its advantage to 18-11. The 11-point final margin was the largest of the set.

"We got some things cleaned up and probably the last 15 points we scored, we played pretty well," Harris said. "We kept attacking and our hitters finally started finding some holes."

Ashley Dudenhoeffer finished with 15 assists, 14 digs and nine service points for the Lady Crusaders. Blake Berhorst totaled 20 digs and eight service points, while Ellie Rockers had five kills and three blocks. Hannah Eynard had six kills, while Clarissa Fennessey had nine digs and Lexy Lamb dished out six assists.

"I saw Hickman play earlier in the season and they've improved a lot," Harris said. "They made us work for it."

Helias (14-1) will host Rock Bridge on Thursday.

In Tuesday night's JV match, Helias (19-1-1) was a 25-8, 25-9 winner.

Riley Bernskoetter had 14 service points and five assists in the victory. Elizazbeth Mealy finished with eight digs and four kills, while Callie Henson also had four kills. Alyssa Sullivan and Regan Bruns had three assists each. Bradi Berhorst totaled six digs, while Amie Henson and Laura Vanderfeltz had four each.

In the freshman match, Helias (14-0-0) won 25-12, 25-12.

Sommer Kolb had 12 service points and five assists for the Lady Crusaders. Jada Oldham finished with nine service points, eight assists and six digs. Olivia Farrow totaled six service points, five digs and three kills, while Danielle Kroll had six service points and three kills. Reagan Bernskoetter also had five digs, while Grace Millard led with four kills.