New strategy pays off for St. Vincent with first win

PERRVILLE, Mo. -- St. Vincent volleyball coach Tim Haffner, in his third season with the team, was able to work with his players in the summer for just the first time this year.

One of the things he focused on was turning his players' serves into weapons by making them jump servers.

"From the get-go this season I've just told my girls we want to be an aggressive serving team, so we've worked hard in practice," Haffner said. "I have four jump servers. Obviously Katie Verseman went on the run tonight, but I think any of the four of them can do it on any given night. I was certainly happy with it."

Verseman, a sophomore, had seven aces in her team's 25-18, 25-15 home victory over Saxony Lutheran on Tuesday night. It was the first win of the season for the Indians (1-4-1), who completed against a high-quality field at the Notre Dame Volleyballfest tournament over the weekend.

"We really focused on playing together and trusting each other because we had a rough week last week," senior middle Katie Mattingly said. "We know that we have talent, and it didn't show last week. We did some other things just to get the girls together this week, so we all really trust each other and have confidence in each other."

St. Vincent had a pair of 4-0 bursts in the first set to provide it with some separation. Two aces from sophomore Kassidy Kassel prompted the first and an ace and unreturned serve by junior Kellie L'Hote sparked the other.

"That's not our team," Saxony coach Alissa Ernst said. "That's the worst that we've played yet. I know we have a lot more to offer than what we showed tonight, and I've already seen it on the court. You can take anything like this as a learning experience and know that St. Vincent worked very hard on their serves.

"Our serve receive showed that we need to work a little harder on that. I know that we have better serve receive than that. I also know that we let the nerves get the best of us. Once we got down, we got way out of rhythm."

St. Vincent's Kassidy Kassel spikes the ball past Saxony Lutheran's Raegan Wieser, left, and Jordan Hecht in the first game of their match Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013 in Perryville, Mo. (Fred Lynch)

Verseman provided the run on her own in the second set. She had four aces and a kill during a 9-0 run that left the Indians with an 19-8 cushion.

"With my jump serving, I've been struggling with it lately, so I'm really excited that I did pretty well with it tonight," Verseman said.

St. Vincent recorded 12 aces as a team and created many other quality offensive possessions with serves, but the Indians also had 10 misses.

"We miss a lot," Haffner said. "I know we had five or six serve outs, even in game two, but if it results in one run, if it results in six or seven aces to me it evens out. It's good to see in the second week of the season. Hopefully it gets more consistent."

Consistency is something St. Vincent is working on.

"I'm so happy," Mattingly said. "That was so much more fun. We have a lot of girls that weren't on the court last year. I think sometimes we just have to give them more confidence. It showed tonight. They have it."

Mattingly finished with five kills, including two emphatic late in the match.

"We had a tough weekend at the Notre Dame tournament," Haffner said. "This was our first win of the season in our sixth game. It was hard for us to get in a rhythm playing good teams.

"You could see finally here in the middle of game one they started to play with more confidence, believe in their capabilities, believed in their training and just moved forward."

Ernst turned her team's focus to this weekend's 48-team Saint Francis Dig For Life Challenge, which is hosted by Notre Dame and the Show Me Center.

"We have a big tournament coming up this weekend," Ernst said. "It's a good learning experience for them."