Trinity Lutheran’s volleyball team rallied to win the first two sets, then led all the way in the third set to defeat Bloomington South 25-23, 25-21, 25-19 in the Bollinger Athletic Complex Saturday morning.

Trinity head coach Janet VanLiew spoke on the outcome against rhe Panthers.

“They are a very good, much improved team,” VanLiew said. “We struggled a bit in certain areas, and it affected our offense. They made us do some things, and we are going to get better playing teams like this.

“We’ve got to work a lot more on blocking. We continue to work on blocking and serve receive,” she added.

South held leads of 7-3, 10-4, 15-7 and 18-13 in the first set before Trinity rallied behind the serving of Zoey Dulaney and attacking of Ava Blomenberg to tie the score at 18-18.

The score was also tied at 19 and 20 before Rachel Bonde had a kill and Addison Darlage had a tip for a point and a 22-20 lead. Blomenberg and Bailey Bonde had kills for Trinity’s last two points in this set.

Bloomington led 4-1 in the second set before Trinity went on a 6-0 run with Carson Bowling having three kills in that rally. The Panthers went on an 8-1 run to cut Trinity’s lead to 20-18 before Bowling, Rachel Bonde and Madison Keith had kills down the stretch.

Trinity jumped on top 5-2 in the third set, a kill by Rachel Bonde made it an 8-4 score, and ace from Laura Roeder gave Trinity a 13-8 lead, a kill by Presley Meyer gave Trinity a 16-12 advantage, Rachel Bonde had back-to-back kills for a 23-15 score, and Blomenberg had a kill for match point.

VanLiew said, “Serving wasn’t too bad. There were a couple misses, but it wasn’t too bad. Our attackers did what they needed to do with the sets they were given. That’s what we work on a lot.”

Roeder was 14-14-1 and Darlage was 11-11-1 in serves. Darlage also had 33 assists and 10 digs.

The IU Columbus commit spoke on the team performance afterwards.

“I thought we played together as a team really well today,” Darlage said. “We didn’t get down on ourselves that much, and if we made a mistake, we came out of it really well.”

Darlage spoke on what the team must improve on going forward.

“We need to work on our serve receive and terminating the ball off serve receive and moving the ball around more on free ball plays. Stuff like that,” Darlage said. “We improved on our serving a lot. Our communication was pretty good. We picked it up there and the end. It was a little rough at first.”

Blomenberg was 14-14-8, Rachel Bonde was 11-11-8 and Bowling was 13-17-12 in attacks.

VanLiew said, “We had some people come in and did a really nice job. I think we upped our game. We maintained our ability to adjust. We changed what we needed to change and did what we needed to do. We took care of business, not as easily as we’d like to, but we did.”

Trinity also defeated South in the Bloomington South Invitational earlier in the season and takes a record of 19-9 into Monday’s home game against Floyd Central.

Trinity Luthran 3, Bloomington South 0

Trinity Lutheran def. Bloomington South 25-23, 25-21, 25-19

Trinity serving leaders: Addison Darlage 11-11-1, Maddie Adams 5-5, Laura Roeder 14-14-1, Carson Bowling 12-14-2

Trinity attacks: Bowling 13-17-12, Rachel Bonde 11-11-8, Ava Blomenberg 14-14-8, Darlage 8-8-4

Assists leaders: Darlage 33, Roeder 6

Digs leaders: Roeder 10, Darlage 10, Zoey Dulaney 11

Trinity record 19-6

Junior varsity

Trinity def. Bloomington South

Trinity serving leaders: Marley Warren 7-7-2, Bella Wischmeier 12-12

Trinity attack leaders: Emmy Price 15-17-5, Sammie Brown 12-13-6, Emerson Warren 12-14-5

Trinity record 13-1

C Team

Trinity def. Bloomington South

Trinity serving leaders- Maddie Johnson 10-11-3, Clara Rubin 9-11-2, Addie Burcham 9-9-2, Brinley Schepman 13-13-2

Trinity record 4-4