Aberdeen Central aced an important mid-season test Thursday night.

The Golden Eagles cracked out 15 aces to help fuel a 26-24, 25-13, 25-15 win over Brandon Valley in an Eastern South Dakota volleyball contest at Golden Eagles Arena.

“Fifteen aces tonight, that’s impressive,” said Central coach Jackie Bindenagel.

Lauryn Burckhard led the assault from service line, collecting six aces.

“I thought most of them were going out of bounds,” Burckhard said, “but they just played them, so it worked out for me.”

The junior was a force from all over the court, racking up a team-leading 14 kills on 18 swings.

“That was probably one of my best games I’ve played in a while,” Burckhard said.

Central trailed 7-3 to start the opening set and was still down 13-9 before gaining some traction. The hosts still needed some late-set heroics to pull out the win, saving two set points on the way to scoring the final four points. That turnaround set the tone for the rest of the evening.

“We started out a little slow and then had a really nice comeback in set one,” Bindenagel said, “and then kind of found our feet and got some confidence serving, and kept them out of system all night.”

The Golden Eagles controlled the final two sets on the way to the victory. Alivia Miller had two aces, four kills, 19 set assists and 11 digs.

“I thought our hitters were pretty efficient,” Bindenagel said. “Alivia put up a nice ball and after we settled in, our passers were getting Alivia the ball in serve receive, so it was a good team effort.”

The Lynx had a hard time not only in serve receive, but also slowing down Burckhard, who managed to find openings on the Brandon Valley side of the court.

“Alivia had great sets right to where I needed to go,” Burckhard said, “and after they started blocking line, I just tried to hit the hard cross and it worked.”

Taylin Kleffman contributed four aces for Central, which had four players with at least two aces on the night.

“Everyone gets confidence off each other,” Burckhard said. “We play off each other.”

As a result, Central improved to 8-4 on the season and grabbed a key victory as it works for seed points for the upcoming SoDak 16 early next month.

Bindenagel knows that Brandon Valley is a solid squad and Central was able to claim an important win

“I think they’re better than what they played tonight,” Bindenagel said, “but our kids took advantage of their miscues.”

Central plays at Tea Area on Tuesday.

Serving: Aberdeen Central 68-75 15 aces (Lauryn Burckhard 14-16 6 aces, Taylin Kleffman 16-16 4 aces, Kennedy Osborne 11-13 2 aces, Alivia Miller 7-8 2 aces, Kenadi Withers 15-15 1 ace).

Hitting: Aberdeen Central 75-91 30 kills (Burckhard 18-21 14 kills, Withers 19-22 5 kills, Kamdyn Borge 21-25 5 kills, Miller 7-8 4 kills).

Setting: Aberdeen Central 80-80 24 assists (Miller 69-69 19 assists).

Digs: Aberdeen Central 44 (Miller 11, Kleffman 10, Withers 8, Osborne 7).

Records: Brandon Valley 5-9; Aberdeen Central 8-4.