The Jefferson City Lady Jays continued their hot start to the season Tuesday night, beating the Rolla Lady Bulldogs in four sets at Fleming Fieldhouse to improve to 5-1.
Focusing on the little things and limiting unforced errors has been a big key for the Lady Jays early in the season.
“We talk to the girls a lot about limiting the amount of unforced errors we have and limiting the amount of runs we let the other team have,” Jefferson City coach Ali Eskens said. “We do a really good job of taking care of our side of the net. …The second we start making unforced errors, we lose our momentum and we kind of fall apart a little bit as a team.
“When we are paying attention to the little things, the big things happen for us. We’ve got to do the little things well and the big things will follow and I think that is what is going so well for us right now.”
Jefferson City got started early Tuesday, using a 9-2 run in the first set to jump out to a 14-7 lead.
The Lady Jays carried the early momentum and took the first set 25-14.
“I think in any game you play, momentum is a huge factor,” Eskens said. “So to be able to come out and be ready to go, it really sets the tone for the match and sets the tone for what we can do and what we can accomplish, so when we go into those ruts we know that we are capable of doing more. Really starting out strong gives us that momentum for the rest of the match.”
The script completely flipped in the second set.
After Rolla made 10 unforced errors in the first set, the Lady Jays made nine of their own in the second set, helping Rolla to an early lead before the Lady Bulldogs took the set 25-17 to tie up the match.
“Our unforced errors,” Eskens said on the biggest difference between the first two sets. “We shot ourselves in the foot in that second set. They were forcing us, they were serving a little bit tougher, we were out of system a little bit more. And when we were out of system, we were making unforced errors. … Rolla really pushed us that second set, so we had to respond and make sure we went back to paying attention to those little things.”
The Lady Jays responded in a big way early in the next set, grabbed hold of the momentum and never really gave it back.
Rolla scored the first point of the third set, but Jefferson City would go on a 6-0 run to follow behind the serving of Ava Reeser.
“We talk about consistency, we talk about speed and location,” Eskens said. “So we work a lot on our serves, we want to be a good serving team because if you can serve teams out of rotation, I think that’s what causes teams to make unforced errors and that’s kind of what happened to us in the second set. So being able to be tough at the service line is really key to success when you’re looking at a volleyball match.”
Jefferson City took the early momentum to grab the third set 25-15 and carried it into the fourth.
Two unforced errors from the Lady Bulldogs started out the fourth set and the Lady Jays made them pay for it by running off an 8-0 run, including two aces from Hannah Vogt and two blocks by Hannah Linthacum.
Jefferson City saw its lead shrink to just 15-10 in the middle of the set, but it would rebound to close it out by a score of 25-18 to win the match.
“We came together after that third set and I said, ‘we have to be aggressive at the serving line,’” Eskens said. “That’s what we did, we came in and we were aggressive at the service line and that gave us that 8-0 lead and gave us that momentum to finish the match.”
Elicia Theroff collected a team-high eight kills for Jefferson City while Jada Murray was right behind with seven. Linthacum led the way with a team-high four blocks while Vogt collected a team-high 19 assists.
Jefferson City will look to carry the momentum into Thursday’s game against Ozark on the road while Rolla (3-3-1) will look to rebound Thursday at home against Owensville.
The Lady Jays JV and freshmen teams also picked up wins Tuesday night. The Jefferson City JV team won 25-19, 25-17 in straight sets while the freshmen won the final two sets 25-23, 15-5 after the Lady Bulldogs won 25-20 in the first set.
III
Jefferson City split its two home games Saturday against Nixa and Kickapoo, beating the Lady Eagles in five sets and losing to the Lady Chiefs in straight sets.
The Lady Jays won 25-22, 19-25, 25-21, 18-25, 15-11 against Nixa before losing 22-25, 10-25, 15-25 against Kickapoo.