WARDSVILLE - It has been a busy seven-day stretch for the Blair Oaks volleyball team.
The Lady Falcons were on the road all of last week, earning a pair of wins at New Haven and Boonville followed by a tournament title at West Plains. And there was no break Monday as they returned home to face the Battle Spartans.
"We're tired, but we're just going to keep on pushing through," Blair Oaks coach McKenzie Bennett said after a 25-11, 25-11 win against Battle. "They played pretty well. They were a little hesitant to begin with, but they came out, did their job and got it done."
Blair Oaks fell behind 5-1 in the first set, unable to successfully return a serve from Battle's Jaime McGuire until the third point.
"When you come in on Monday and you haven't had any practices or any touches, sometimes it's a little hard (to regroup)," Bennett said. " Battle came out very strong and we had to pick ourselves up from that."
The Spartans made errors on four of the next seven points, allowing Blair Oaks to pull within one of the lead. Madison Mitchell tipped the ball over the net on the second hit and it dropped in on the next point, tying the score at 7.
Mariah Radmacher followed with a kill that landed on the back line, giving Blair Oaks an 8-7 lead. The Lady Falcons never trailed again in the match.
After two more kills by Radmacher, Mitchell took control of the serve at 16-11. She wouldn't give it up, recording nine straight service points to finish the set.
Mitchell also served the first three points to start the second set.
"We've moved her away from the jump serve and down to a regular, on-the-floor serve," Bennett said. "It's got a lot of movement on it.
"Thursday at Boonville, she served 19 straight points with her jump serve. This weekend, her serve was really an asset to us. And tonight, it got us back in that game to fight hard."
Blair Oaks played more cleanly on offense to start the second set, getting kills from Radmacher, Emma Schroeder and Kennedy Flanner.
Battle came back to close the gap to 6-5, but the errors began to pile up for the Spartans. Radmacher then had back-to-back kills to push the lead to 11-6.
Sarah Girard came off the bench in the second set and added a kill and a block for the Lady Falcons.
"We got some kids in who normally don't see varsity court time, which was nice," Bennett said. "They did well, scored some good points."
Radmacher had a team-high seven kills for Blair Oaks, while Flanner and Elsie Villmer finished with five and four kills, respectively. Mitchell had 17 assists and Villmer added seven digs.
Blair Oaks is off to its second straight 10-0 start, winning its first 10 matches for the third time in the last four years.
The Lady Falcons play today at Eldon, but the busy schedule continues with a home match Thursday against California and another tournament Saturday at Cabool.
"Wednesday, we'll do a real super-short practice, get a couple reps in," Bennett said. "Thursday we'll play, and then Friday I'm giving them off. We leave at 5 a.m. Saturday."
In the JV match, Blair Oaks won 25-7, 25-9 to improve to 9-2.
Anna Wekenborg had seven kills, followed by Payton Mitchell with six and Emily Tellman with five. Madi Rissmiller had 13 assists and five digs, Tellman added nine assists and Mitchell served two aces.
Blair Oaks also won the freshman match 25-19, 25-6 to improve to 9-3-2.
Abbi Wieberg led the Lady Falcons with four kills, five aces and one block, while Gigi Ochoa had three kills and Emma Scruggs finished with six assists. Aubrey Hardwick also had four digs in the win.