Work done in practice paved the way to victory on the court for Aberdeen Roncalli Monday night at the Christian School Gym.

The Cavaliers did major damage from the service line to help fuel a 25-23, 19-25, 25-17, 25-16 non-conference volleyball win over Aberdeen Christian.

“I like to get the girls different numbers for spots to serve. I think that their spot serving has gotten so good. It’s just so solid,” said Roncalli coach Leesa Ware. “They know how to do short serves, long serves, aggressive serves. We work on serving every single day in practice, but their serving tonight just looked extremely good.”

Roncalli not only kept the Knights on their heels, they scored numerous points with aces in the match.

“They did a nice job, I can’t even say getting us out of system, because it was ace, ace, ace,” said Christian coach Sally Stoebner. “Definitely got us flustered.”

It was lone Roncalli senior Cambry Feickert who strung together multiple points on numerous occasions that allowed the Cavaliers to pull away in the third and fourth sets after the two teams split the opening sets.

“I always try to serve right away after the whistle,” Feickert said, “and getting a contact hard, like right on the back of the ball helps to get a float, and with a lower toss, you can get it lower to the net and that helps.”

Feickert, who had three aces, said she likes to keep opponents off balanced by varying her serves.

“I try to go deep for most of the balls, and then short for a couple of balls just to throw them off,” Feickert said. “But deeper it’s easier because it kind of goes off their shoulder, they gotta open up, take it to an angle to the side. So that’s a tougher ball to serve receive.”

The Knights had a difficult time dealing with some of shorter serves.

“They definitely have some drop serves,” said Christian’s Jacie Fogarty. “They’re really good servers.”

Grace Cogley also had three aces, as she and Feickert combined for four aces in a pivotal third set victory.

That set deflated some of the energy of the Knights.

“When we get down in a hole, we kind of lose our energy,” said Christian senior Sophie Glynn, “and that’s kind of what put us in that deficit.”

It was a memorable night for Roncalli setter Elyana Roach, who collected her 1,000th career set assist early in the third set. The junior was quick to credit her hitters for her success.

“My name is obviously the one that’s going to say I have 1,000 assists, but without the girls I play with, none of this would be possible,” Roach said. “They make my job really easy. I’m so grateful that I have these girls.”

Meanwhile, Christian was without its starting setter, Sawyer Schwan, due to injury. That gave Fogarty an opportunity and the sophomore responded with 30 set assists.

“I was definitely nervous, because I feel like I just put myself to more high expectations,” Fogarty said, “because we have really good hitters, and I just wanted them to do well and our team to do well.”

Christian did not go quietly, and made the Cavaliers grind out the victory.

“We went down fighting. We didn’t totally concede, so I’ve got to give it to my team, for just muscling up,” Stoebner said. “I mean we could still string together, three, four, five points.”

Ware knew from past experience that the Knights would battle to the end.

“We knew that Aberdeen Christian, it’s always a dogfight. They’re scrappy. They don’t give up,” Ware said. “They’ve got good athletes. We knew it was going to be tough.”

Ari Johnson finished with a match-best 13 kills to lead the Knights, despite a game plan designed to slow her down.

“We knew that Ari was going to be a huge competitor,” Ware said. “We told blockers if they can try to get a hand on every single one of them and help out our defense a little bit that was going to be key. Because otherwise, you leave her wide open at the net, she’s going to take care of business.”

Jillian Ellwein topped Roncalli with 11 kills.

In the end, it turned out to be another competitive match between the two Aberdeen teams that split five-set matches the past two years.

“It’s always been a really exciting game,” Glynn said. “It’s one of my favorite games to play, just because it’s a home town rival kind of situation. I know two years ago we beat them in five and that was one of the most exciting ones. Last year we also went to five. It’s always been a really long game.”

Christian (7-5) plays at Waubay-Summit tonight, while Roncalli (8-1) travels to Sisseton on Thursday.

Both local teams came away from Monday’s match feeling positive about what they can take away from it.

“They should be proud of the way that they played,” Stoebner said of her players, “especially because we totally flipped up our lineup and we had about two days to practice it.”

Roach noted that the contest will help prepare the Cavaliers for upcoming matches against second-rated Class B Warner and fourth-rated unbeaten Clark-Willow Lake next week, because the Knights presented a challenge.

“They’re middles are super strong, Ari and then Jolie (Fogarty) is also super strong. I know they were missing Sawyer tonight. She’s a big piece of that team, but I think that Jacie did do a really good job stepping up,” Roach said. “We were expecting a good match and we’re really glad that they played us how they did to get us to work on some things. We have really big games coming up, Warner and Clark, so this was a good game to get us ready.”

Serving: Aberdeen Roncalli (Cambry Feickert 3 aces, Grace Cogley 3 aces); Aberdeen Christian 5 aces (Jacie Fogarty 2, Payton Skarin 2, Jolie Fogarty 1).

Hitting: Aberdeen Roncalli (Jillian Ellwein 11 kills, Cogley 6 kills, Gabby Thomas 6 kills, Karsyn Davis 6 kills); Aberdeen Christian 35 kills (Arianna Johnson 13, Reagan Jett 7, Mia Ramirez 6).

Setting: Aberdeen Roncalli (Elyana Roach 29 assists, Feickert 8 assists); Aberdeen Christian 35 assists (Jacie Fogarty 30, Skarin 3).

Digs: Aberdeen Roncalli (Cogley 19, Feickert 11, Ellwein 6); Aberdeen Christian 63 (Ramirez 20, Skarin 12, Jacie Fogarty 10, Nora Fliehs 8).

Blocks: Aberdeen Roncalli (Thomas 1 solo 5 assists, G. Cogley 4 assists, Felicity Cogley 3 assists); Aberdeen Christian 3 (Johnson, Jett, Jolie Fogarty).

Records: Aberdeen Roncalli 8-1; Aberdeen Christian7-5.