Trinity Lutheran’s volleyball team is on a roll.
The Cougars, ranked No. 1 in the state in Class 1A, defeated New Albany 25-14, 25-23, 25-15 Thursday night in the Bollinger Athletic Complex.
That gives the Cougars a record of 26-4 heading into the sectional they will host beginning Tuesday night.
Trinity coach Faith Wilder-Newland said serving was a key.
“We’ve got to handle serve receive and serve tough, and take them out of what they want to do,” she listed as a key before the match.
The Cougars had seven aces with two each from Bailey Tabeling, Ruthie Bingham and Kamzi Gross.
“We need good defense. I don’t know a lot about them, but I know they’re really energetic, they cover the court well. We’re going to have to hit some good shots, but play good defense ourselves,” Wilder-Newland said.
This was Trinity’s second win over a Class 4A team this week as the Cougars won a five-set match at Floyd Central Monday night.
Trinity led the entire first two sets, and jumped on top 3-2 in the third set before New Albany scored three straight points to grab its first lead of the night at 5-3.
Bingham and Carson Bowling responded with back-to-back kills and Tabeling served an ace and the Cougars were in front to stay.
Tabeling, Bingham and Bowling had four kills each in the third set, but it was a kill by Stella Kleffman that was the final point of the night.
Trinity held a 9-8 lead in the first set before going on a 7-0 run with Tabeling contributing two kills in that rally and Gross served an ace to make the score 16-8.
Set point came on a serving error by the Bulldogs.
An ace by Bowling gave the Cougars a 2-0 lead in the second set, a kill by Bingham made it 5-2, another kill by Bingham gave her team a 9-5 lead.
The visitors cut Trinity’s lead to 15-14, and Trinity’s biggest lead after that was 18-14 on an ace by Bingham.
New Albany pulled even at 23-23 before Tabeling served an ace and Bowling had a kill to finish the set.
The Cougars had 42 kills with Bowling having 14, Bingham 13 and Tabeling 11.
Before the varsity match, seniors Kleffman, Bingham and Gross presented ‘super fan,’ Roger Clark with an autographed Trinity volleyball t-shirt. Clark has attended all of Trinity’s volleyball matches this season, home and away.
After the match, Kleffman, Bingham and Gross received roses.
New Albany won the junior varsity match 25-21, 25-20 to leave Trinity with a record of 12-7 heading into a junior varsity tournament at Providence Saturday morning. Brownstown Central and Seymour will also play in that tournament.
Trinity will take a 16-match win streak into the sectional.
Medora will face Rising Sun at 6 p.m. Tuesday. The schedule for Thursday has Jac-Cen-Del playing Oldenburg Academy, followed by Trinity taking on Crothersville.
West Washington drew the bye and will play the winner of Medora-Rising Sun at 11 a.m. Saturday. The Thursday night winners will play in the second semi-final match with the championship set for 7 p.m. Saturday.