The Trinity Lutheran volleyball team took step one toward winning another sectional title Tuesday night by eliminating Oldenburg Academy 25-12, 25-6, 25-14 in the Bollinger Athletic Complex.

Cougars Coach Janet VanLiew said it was nice to get that first sectional match in the books.

“I think it was a good match to work through some things, get out some of the nerves that we had., and also get everybody we had some playing time, get some experience what it’s like to play in that environment.”

Carson Bowling helped the Cougars open a 9-2 lead in the first set. She had a block and a kill for the final two points in a 5-0 run, and later she served an ace to make the score 11-4.

The Cougars prevented the Twisters from going on any runs of longer than three points, and Zoey Dulaney served an ace for set point.

Trinity moved on top 4-0 in the second set and was leading 12-5 when Presley Meyer served 12 straight points for a 24-5 lead, and Sammie Brown had a kill for set point.

The only time the Cougars trailed was 3-2 in the third set before Rachel Bonde came up with a kill to tie the score at 3-3 and, Bowling followed with a block as Trinity went on an 8-1 rally to lead 10-4.

Meyer’s serving helped Trinity extend its lead to 18-7 before the Twisters took advantage of some inexperience by Trinity’s younger players to score four straight points to make the score 18-11 before Madison Keith had a kill for set point.

Keith was 23-26-11 in attacks.

She said, “I don’t get nervous anymore. I trust my training; I trust my teammates around me. They’re all really supportive so it gives me a lot of confidence.

“We did everything well. Our serving is one of our strengths. I’d say it takes a lot of teams out. (Oldenburg) had a really good middle. We served hard so they couldn’t hit much, which helped us.

“Our all-around game was good. Even when we had our subs coming in everybody played up to that level. We’re not going down without a fight. We have a lot of goals up in our locker room, talking about how we’re going to play as a team, we’re going to play to a certain level and we’re not dropping a set to anybody, we’re just going to play really high.”

VanLiew said, “I thought this match checked off a lot of things in the box that I wanted to get done today. We were pretty on-point with our serves most of the match, serving to the zone and serving aggressively.”

Dulaney and Laura Roeder both served four aces.

“We’ve really been working on serving to certain zones to kind of target certain players,” VanLiew said. “There were not a lot of opportunities to block, but when we did, I thought we did a nice job of putting the ball away. We really believe deep blocking is part of our defense. It’s not just something that happens sometimes. It does things for the back row defense, and we play off that.

“I thought our defense was pretty strong. One thing about our blocking, it’s not always about blocking the ball, but funneling the ball to certain places, and I thought we did a nice job of that, and that made our defense look like they were always in position, which they were.”

VanLiew praised the younger girls that came in off the bench.

“Our next group of kids is very good, and they challenge our varsity every day at practice. That’s what makes us good.”

The sectional will continue Thursday night with Jac-Cen-Del playing Milan at 6 p.m., followed by Crothersville facing Rising Sun.

Trinity (25-9) will play Hauser at 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Trinity Lutheran Sectional

Trinity Lutheran 3, Oldenburg Academy 0

Trinity def. Oldenburg Academy 25-12, 25-6, 25-15

Serve-Attempt-Aces

Serving: Addison Darlage 11-13-2, Zoey Dulaney 14-14-4, Laura Roeder 12-14-4

Attempts-Total-Kills

Hitting: Carson Bowling 11-11-8, Rachel Bonde 11-12-8, Madison Keith 23-26-11

Blocks: Carsn Bowling, 2.

Digs: Zoey Dulaney 9, Laura Roeder 7, Maddie Adams 7, Madison Keith, 7.

Assists: Addison Darlage, 30.