After going 1-3-1 in their home tournament Saturday, the Jefferson City Lady Jays wanted to clean up their play.
"We have to be a little bit more disciplined in some of those small skills, make sure we're doing the little stuff at a high level," Jefferson City coach Lisa Hoffmeyer said. " Like the communication, the controls, doing the easy stuff."
The Lady Jays showed improvement in some of those areas against Rolla on Tuesday in a 25-16, 25-15 win at Fleming Fieldhouse.
Jefferson City wanted to put more pressure on its opponent with its serves. It led to eight service aces - three each for Claire Stegeman and Rhakala Blackmon - and a serving percentage better than 80 percent.
The Lady Jays capped off a 6-2 run to begin the match with a Blackmon ace. The score reached 18-4 when Jordan Niermeyer served an ace.
Jefferson City led by as many as 15 at 21-6 after Kayla Walters spiked one in front of a diving Rolla player in the back corner.
"We have talked a lot about first contact, doing a better job with that first ball," Hoffmeyer said. "We feel like our setter is chasing entirely too much at this point in time. It makes it hard or impossible to find our offensive rhythm when she's having to do that, so just trying to do a better job getting her feet to the ball in that first contact and giving our setter and our offense an opportunity."
A smooth pass from libero Sydney Vogt to setter Paige Reeser set up Blackmon for a kill with a soft hit to the middle of the Rolla defense for a 24-12 lead.
Blackmon and Walters led the Lady Jays with six kills each. Reeser tallied 16 assists and 12 digs for Jefferson City.
"I think our middles did a really nice job of just getting themselves involved a lot of times tonight too, pulling blockers and creating some one-on-ones for outside attackers," Hoffmeyer said. "I think that helped us score some points."
Jefferson City got off to a fast start in the second set, with a Stegeman ace making it 5-1 and a Walters kill following.
The Lady Bulldogs were able to get back within four at 12-8, but Blackmon took over with her block that helped the Lady Jays build a 22-12 advantage.
Blackmon recorded all of her team-high three blocks within a seven-point span.
"Rhakala had kind of block shut down run there about the middle of the second set that made their life very difficult," Hoffmeyer said.
The final two Lady Jays points came on Ada Humphrey kills to close out the straight-set victory.
Jefferson City (4-5-1) is off until next Tuesday when it hosts Battle.
In Tuesday's JV match, Jefferson City defeated Rolla 25-20, 25-15.
Elicia Theroff had four kills and four blocks, and Jada Murray added four kills and six digs.
Jefferson City won the freshman match 25-20, 25-23.
Ava Reeser had 15 digs, three kills and two aces, and Bri Avey added eight digs, six aces and five assists.