Perryville overpowers Saxony Lutheran

Perryville volleyball coach Dave Mirly had been looking for a way to get Brooke Hogard involved in the attacking game all season.

The junior came through for Mirly and the Pirates by leading them to a 25-16, 25-19 win over Saxony Lutheran on Thursday at home.

"She plays opposite Alex Spears, our leader in kills, and she's still been great for us," Mirly said about Hogard. "But tonight was really her coming out party. She did a phenomenal job. She's been working hard on those quick hits and stuff, and its been a little shaky up until tonight, and boy did it all come together for her tonight."

The junior led the Pirates with 10 kills, three aces and four digs.

"I want the ball and I don't really like to waste a chance to score points, so anytime my teammates got it to me I was confident in scoring," Hogard said. "I couldn't have done it without my setters, they made it possible."

Perryville (13-6-1) got off to a slow start against Saxony (9-8-3) in the first set.

The Crusaders jumped out to a 6-2 lead, thanks to three straight service aces from senior Abigail Bergman and a couple errors by the Pirates.

"We didn't do a very good job of communicating right from the start," Mirly said. "I almost had to use a timeout there, but I let them kind of work it out and see if they could figure it out on their own."

Perryville's Daria Thompson, left, and Brooke Hogard work to block a spike in the second set against Saxony Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014 in Perryville. (GLENN LANDBERG)

After giving up three straight points, Perryville started communicating better, which led to a 6-1 run and Perryville's first lead of the set.

The Pirates extended their lead to 11-8 before the Crusaders called a timeout.

"I thought we came out fired up and generated the intensity of the match," Saxony coach Julie Brandmeyer said. "Perryville just kind of turned it on offensively right around the 10-point mark. They run a faster offense than we do, so we had a real tough time recovering from that."

The Crusaders continued to struggle against the Pirates' attack. Saxony also committed seven errors in the first set.

Perryville went on a 14-8 run to win the set.

Saxony committed four errors to begin the second set, which gave Perryville an 8-3 lead and forced Brandmeyer to call a timeout.

Perryville's Alexandria Spears spikes the ball past Saxony's Raegan Wieser in the second set Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014 in Perryville. (GLENN LANDBERG)

"A lot of our errors were just hitting it out on an offensive attack," Brandmeyer said. "Those are things that can be fixed and have to be fixed. A lot of it starts with just gaining a little more confidence at the net and with our arm swings. We talk about taking advantage of a chance to get a point, but we didn't do that tonight."

Saxony went on a 3-0 run with an ace from junior Logan Franke and two kills by junior Raegan Wieser to make it 8-6 right out of the timeout. However, a few more errors on the Crusaders and three kills from Hogard made it 14-6.

Saxony used a 7-3 run to move within 17-14, but four kills from Spears and two service aces by Perryville senior Daria Thompson down the stretch gave Perryville the win.

Wieser led Saxony with four kills and Bergman contributed two aces in the loss. Saxony junior Brianna Mueller had 10 assists.

Moll led Perryville with 14 assists, while Spears led with four digs.

"The season is winding down fast and this is the time teams need to start peaking," Mirly said. "Tonight was a step towards that, and I expect us to finish out strong and look forward to the playoffs."