CENTERVILLE — On 20 occasions Wednesday, a familiar chant came from the Xenia volleyball players on the court, then its the bench, and was finally followed by whomever wanted to let it be known next.
“A-a-a-a-a-ace!”
The No. 15 Lady Bucs used many of those service aces in succession to build big leads in the opening games of its first round sectional tournament match and cruised to a win against No. 14 Ponitz CTC 25-9, 25-10, 25-9, at Centerville High School.
Kendall Sherman, Paige Shouse and Arison Boswell all had four total during the match, while Arianna Corbett and Emma Bowen both added three and Izzy Propes had two.
“We’ve been working to get more consistent at it because a lot of times, we could rally in points and go back there and ruin our momentum by having a service error,” head coach Jessica Threats said. “We’ve fortunate that we have some aggressive servers that can generate some aces for some extra points.”
Xenia had seven aces in the opening set with three by Boswell leading the way. All of Bowen’s came consecutively during a dominant second set run that was followed by three from Shouse to see Xenia break an early 4-4 tie into a 15-7 advantage. The Lady Bucs had nine total aces in the second game.
Propes got both of her aces during a seven-point service run in the third game, the largest for either side in the match, that allowed the Lady Bucs to coast down the home stretch.
Shouse also had 10 kills and Sherman produced eight.
Xenia went through a tough stretch during the middle of the season in going 4-10 out of the game while dealing with injuries and inconsistent lineups.
Following a post-match team meeting before heading home after a loss at Greeneview, Xenia has gone 6-3 since and Threats said she has been pleased with her team’s response to that talk.
“Early in the season, everything was a struggle from getting used to adjustments and anybody needing to be ready to go on any given night,” she said. “Obviously a talk after that match has definitely helped. I knew that once we had all of our pieces we could be a strong team, and I’m excited they’ve come back now toward the latter part of the season.”
Xenia advances to face No. 3 Bellbrook on Saturday at 4 p.m. back at Centerville.
