Notre Dame volleyball team falls to top-ranked St. Pius X in Class 3 sectional

HILLSBORO, Mo. -- Facing match point, the Notre Dame girls volleyball team dodged three bullets from St. Pius X (Festus) in the second game of their Class 3 Sectional Saturday at Hillsboro High School.

The first bullet was a serve by Lancers star junior Jena Otec into the net.

Then on the same rally, Notre Dame junior libero Marianna Below already had made a season-saving dig on a kill attempt, Lancers junior Eleanor Russell was all ready to go in full celebration mode but reacted with dismay when her kill attempt down the left sideline was ruled out of bounds.

On the following play, diving Notre Dame senior Briley Bieser wisely decided not to touch a Warror spike along the same sideline before it landed out of bounds.

Finally, the Bullldogs were all square at 24-all in a set against the top-ranked team in the state that had been tied 15 times previously.

Notre Dame's Sam Feeney bumps the ball as Allyson Jansen looks on late in the second set against St. Pius X in a Class 3 sectional Saturday in Hillsboro, Missouri. (Fred Lynch)

Just when momentum seemed to embrace Notre Dame, the end came quickly.

On the following point, after Notre Dame junior Sam Brennan had retrieved a ball along the sideline and sent it back over the net, play was stopped as St. Pius players were passing the ball to make an attack, and the point was awarded to the Lancers after some discussion among the officials.

Moments later, Emma Grimshaw unleashed a spike that went off the arms of first Notre Dame's Allyson Jansen, then Brennan, before hitting the floor.

St. Pius, a state semifinalist in 2014, had escaped with a 26-4, 25-19 victory to advance to the quarterfinal match, where it went on to defeat Lutheran South.

Notre Dame, making its first sectional appearance since reaching the final four in 2010, closed its season at 32-4-3.

In the aftermath, the controversial call that gave the Lancers (32-3) their fourth match point loomed large and was a hot topic.

Notre Dame's Sam Brennan, left, Alexis Welter and Allyson Jansen cheer as they take a timeout with the score of the second set tied 24-24 against St. Pius X in a Class 3 sectional Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015 in Hillsboro, Missouri. (Fred Lynch)

"[The officials] said they thought the ball that Sam Brennan tipped went outside the antenna, but I don't think it did," Notre Dame coach Tara Stroup said. "She didn't think it did. She was standing right there, and the guy across the gym is the one who called it. I'm still confused on that, but they're not going to overturn that. It was huge. It gave them game point."

Brennan was by the chair official when the play occurred, and the crosscourt official made the call.

An official after the match said the ball brushed the antenna, which is out of bounds.

"I did see it, and I did not see it go over the net and touch the antenna or anything," said Notre Dame senior Abbie McAlister, who finished with a team-high 15 kills. "I thought it was a clean play, but that was from my point of view."

Lancers coach Dustin Cutts was breathing a sigh of relief that his team didn't have to face a third set and briefly addressed the play before turning his attention to the quarterfinal match.

"The girl had to go way off the court to get that ball back over the net, and it looked like to me it brushed the antenna," Cutts said. "It has to come back completely inside the antenna."

His positioning was from the same side of the court as the official who made the call.

"It depends on the angle, but yeah, typically the guys on the other side should see that," Cutts said. "It was a good break for us. We needed that because we were struggling a little bit, and they were pretty fired up. Yeah, it definitely helped us."

Notre Dame coach Tara Stroup talks to her team between sets against St. Pius X at a Class 3 sectional Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015 in Hillsboro, Missouri. (Fred Lynch)

One topic all sides agreed on was the 5-foot-10 Otec, who leads the St. Louis area in kills and matched McAlister's 15 kills.

"She is a force on that team," Stroup said. "I don't know their stats, but she had a bunch of kills. We hadn't played them at all coming into this, and we found out as much as we could about them beforehand, but that's what pretty much everyone told us -- No. 9 is just a hitter. From the front row, back row, she was just tremendous. We knew she was going to get a bunch of sets, but she was just so powerful. A lot of her back-row hits, we didn't even get a hand on those."

Otec dealt out a steady flow of spikes that gave little time to react and cut through the middle of the Bulldogs' defense.

"We definitely count on her for a lot," Cutts said. "She definitely comes through and does a lot of things when we need something big."

Notre Dame held a 12-6 lead in the first set before St. Pius rallied to force ties at 15-all and 16-all. Carley Nicholson dinked a shot into open space in the middle of the Notre Dame defense for a 17-16 lead. It was the second point of a six-point run for the Warriors that opened a 21-16 advantage. Notre Dame got as close as 21-17, but ultimately Otec closed the set with a kill.

The teams opened the second set tied at 1-1, and ties followed at 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.

Otek gave the Lancers a 19-18 lead with a kill, and a wide Bulldogs spike gave St. Pius a 20-18 lead.

Notre Dame answered with a dink kill by McAlister and a spike by Alexis Welter that was blocked out of bounds for a 20-all tie.

Successful and unsuccessful dinks by McAlister had the game tied at 21 before the Warriors rolled off three consecutive points for the 24-21 lead to set up the late dramatics.

"We knew coming up here that we had a really strong task ahead of us as far as the two teams that we were going to play if we won this first game," Stroup said. "It was going to be a battle any time you get to this point to keep going. "I felt that we came out and played with heart and we did not quit. They're the No. 1 ranked team in our class, but we came out and played with them as well as we could, I feel like."'

Brennan added seven kills for the Bulldogs while Welter had eight digs and Below had seven.

Notre Dame will be losing three senior starters in setter Sam Feeney, who extended her own school single-season record with 23 assists, McAlister and Bieser.

"It felt good getting that district championship, and this is the best season we've had since we've been here, and I'm proud of my team," McAlister said.

Feeney also had a team-high nine digs.

"It felt really good to win districts," Feeney said. "We really came together as a team and we really wanted to win. ... We gave it our all."

"All three of my seniors, they have been crucial players this whole season," Stroup said. "A record-breaking setter and a record-breaking hitter, and Briley came out there and she had to serve those pressure points when the game was on the line and made some good serves when the game was on the line. She's a good defesnsive player, and we're going to tremendously miss all three of those seniors."