SPRINGDALE -- Nathan Bodenstein will probably win a lot of volleyball games in his career, but he only had one chance to win his first one.
Allie Pitts closed Monday's season-opening match with an ace from the service line and the Shiloh Christian Lady Saints rallied from a 2-1 deficit to defeat Springdale High 3-2 in nonconference action.
Pitts' ace capped a match-closing 3-0 run for the Lady Saints (1-0) after the Lady Bulldogs (0-1) rallied back to tie the final game at 12-12 after trailing 4-1 and 9-5.
"Nothing like starting out your career with something like that," Bodenstein said after the match. "It's good for my confidence, but it's also good for the girls' confidence. We have a lot of pressure on us this year moving down to Class 4A and just knowing how much talent we have coming back. So it's really good for them to figure out they can hang with some big 7A schools."
Shiloh Christian's 25-23, 18-25, 23-25, 25-18, 15-12 win was close the entire way against the Lady Bulldogs, who'd beaten the Lady Saints twice in summer matches.
Junior hitter Reagan Robinson displayed a solid all-around game for the Lady Saints, finishing with 15 kills and 5 blocks. She was also solid at the service line. Morgan Stoecklein added 10 kills and Tori Richards had 6 blocks for Shiloh Christian.
"Reagan is tough to stop," Bodenstein said. "We're blessed to have her for two years. We have a lot of great hitters. Morgan Stoecklein stepped up big for us and had three big kills."
Springdale coach Kylie Moad was also coaching her first varsity match, and her team played solid all five games in the narrow loss.
Junior Desiree Mack was a force at the net with 17 kills, slamming down shot-after-shot. Ryann Goodsell added 10 kills and 4 blocks. Beatriz Ordonez also came up big with 19 assists and 4 ace serves.
"Desiree is a force," Moad said. "I thought tonight she didn't swing as much as I would have liked for her to. She was trying to place the ball a lot, which is good at times, but we need her swinging."
Moad also praised the play of freshman libero Elaina Pack, who was playing her first varsity match.
Shiloh Christian win the first game on a Robinson block, then Springdale won back-to-back games behind Mack, Ryann Goodsell and the serves of Ordonez. Bethany Maddox punctuated the second game win with a kill to seal the game, and Mack's block closed out game two.
The Lady Saints bounced back to win the fourth game and tie the match. Shiloh Christian jumped out to a 7-1 lead and later led 10-3 on Hannah Smithson's ace. Springdale closed to within 17-14, but could not climb completely back.
In the final game, Shiloh Christian again jumped to a 4-1 lead. but Springdale fought back to tie it a 4-4 on an ace by Maddie Mueller. It was close the rest of the way, including 12-12 when Mueller made an incredible save of a ball going out of bounds to win the point.
But Shiloh Christian closed the match with three straight points, the last an ace from Pitts to give Bodenstein his first varsity win.
Both teams will be in action tonight as Springdale hosts Huntsville, and Shiloh Christian hosts Rogers Heritage.
Sports on 08/26/2014