St. Joseph's Academy doesn't lose much. The Angels have won five straight district titles and made two Class 4 Final Four appearances in that time, but they found themselves down early Tuesday night against Jefferson City.
The Lady Jays took advantage of a few Angel errors and got a kill from Baylee Rozier to lead 5-2 in the first set.
The lead changed hands three times after that, but a 9-3 run was the difference as the Angels took the first set 25-20 and their offense took over in the second set to win 25-15 for the straight-set victory at Fleming Fieldhouse.
"I think we're pretty proud with the way our kids competed tonight," Jefferson City coach Lisa Hoffmeyer said. "They never rolled over. Their conversations with each other were positive, their morale was there."
With the score 5-2 in the first set, the Angels scored the next four points to take their first lead.
A Corrin Lepper kill later gave the Lady Jays a 9-7 lead. Annabelle Maassen got her first of a team-high seven kills for a 10-9 advantage.
Another Maassen kill tied it at 11 before the Angels scored nine of the next 12 points to lead 20-14.
Jefferson City got as close as 21-18 but the Angels scored the next two points and held on for the five-point win.
The Lady Jays had 61 swings at the ball but tallied 16 kills. Veronica Allison assisted on 11 of those kills.
"They are just fast," Hoffmeyer said. "Their kids are used to a fast offense, so we felt like there wasn't much we could do to surprise them. It seemed like they were waiting on us most of the time."
On the other side, St. Joseph's Academy distributed the ball around and took control for much of the second set despite the best effort from the Lady Jays.
Down 14-8, Maassen and Ryann Schenewerk each got a dig during the volley only to eventually have the ball go straight up to the ceiling and back down to the floor for an Angels point.
Jefferson City ended up with 21 digs, led by Rozier's nine. Maassen had five, while Schenewerk and libero Tori LePage each had three.
"They were hitting the ball hard and out kids were attacking the ball and getting there," Hoffmeyer said. "I think we expect our kids to play defense that way. We always talk about we want to win every single hustle point."
The Angels used a 9-4 run to lead 23-12. Maassen got a pair of kills to get the Lady Jays to within 24-15. The Lady Jays went to Maassen often Tuesday night.
"That's pretty typical, but honestly part of that too is the team thing that we want to work on is we rely on our left sides too much," Hoffmeyer said. " The ball gets funnelled that way because that's your easiest option, but we do expect a lot from our left side. We always have and we always will, but we would also like to work on our ball distribution."
Amanda Meyer finished off the match with a kill.
"We want to have Jay Pride about ourselves no matter what we're doing, who we're facing and how talented they are," Hoffmeyer said. " We felt proud about the fact that the girls did that tonight. There was no disappointment while we were out on the court."
Jefferson City (17-7-5) has three regular-season matches left - at Hickman on Thursday, at Blair Oaks next Tuesday and at home against Helias on Oct. 12.
"Nothing is going to come easy from here," Hoffmeyer said.
In the JV match, the Lady Jays won the first set 29-27 before falling in sets two and three, 12-25, 10-25.
Rylie Bohanan had five kills and two blocks for Jefferson City. Abby Baughman tallied five blocks and three kills.
The Jefferson City JV is 12-9-2 on the season.
St. Joseph's Academy won the freshman match 25-16, 24-26, 25-14.
Sarah Linthacum led the Lady Jays with eight kills and six blocks. Abby Farris had 18 digs, while Myla Chalmer had 13 assists and three aces.
The Jefferson City freshman team is 16-9-1.