At times this year the Lee’s Summit Community Christian volleyball team has had lulls that have allowed its opponents to get back in the game. </p><p>Tuesday wasn’t one of those nights. </p><p>The Eagles escaped a first game scare from Lone Jack, winning 25-22, but instead of letting down they picked up their game and won the final two games 25-16, 25-13. </p><p>“That’s one of our goals is to keep moving forward and not let them take a game away from us after we win one,” Eagle senior Mel Church said. “It’s all focus, not getting distracted by fans, missed serves, mistakes, anything.”</p><p>There were a pair of tough servers that gave the Eagles fits in the first game, but they were able to shut them down the rest of the night. </p><p>“That was their goal the next two games was to shut them down to no more than one point,” Eagles head coach Mikki Shearer said. “That was the difference in the next two games. We stopped making our serve mistakes and let them make the mistakes.”</p><p>And when the Eagles stopped making mistakes, they made things look easy. </p><p>They jumped out to a 17-11 lead in game two and never let Lone Jack get any closer than that the rest of the way. </p><p>The Eagles pulled ahead early in the third game as well thanks to a tip and a kill on back-to-back plays by Church. A pair of aces by Gibson later in the game put them ahead 18-9 and it was smooth sailing from there. </p><p>Indeed, those two servers weren’t a problem in the final two games, as LSCCS made their offensive game look easy. </p><p>“Our goal is to kill off serve-receive, always,” Church said. </p><p>Added Shearer, “That’s one of the goals we worked on this year was kills off serve-receive and keeping the ball in play. It doesn’t have to be a perfect back-over, but keep the ball in play. Put it back in play and let them make the mistakes.”</p><p>The win moved the Eagles to 15-4 on the season despite losing six seniors from a season ago. </p><p>So, is Shearer surprised by the hot start?</p><p>“Uh, yes,” she said laughing. “It’s a very young team, not only in age but experience in playing together. Mel and Bayli are the only ones that have played together. But it’s been working great.”</p><p>And a big reason has been because of Church and Gibson. </p><p>The lone seniors have provided leadership on and off the court. </p><p>“Especially at the beginning of the season, that’s when the pressure was on for us to teach them what they needed to do,” Church said of the newcomers. “Now that they’re stepping up it’s a lot easier on the whole team."</p><p>Now, with 15 wins already under their belts and an ever-improving group of youngsters to go with a pair of solid veterans, there’s plenty of reason for optimism these final few weeks of the season for the Eagles. “We’ve had big hopes for the end of the season,” Church said.</p><p>But they’re not getting ahead of themselves. </p><p>“One game at a time, that’s what we keep focus on. Let’s give 120 percent one game at a time and let’s keep at it,” Shearer said. </p><p><b>North stuns Wildcats</b></p><p>Lee’s Summit North snapped Blue Springs’ 48-game Suburban Big Seven Conference winning streak on Tuesday, shocking the No. 2-ranked Wildcats on their home floor with a pair of 25-21 wins. </p><p>“We were working on all cylinders which you have to do against a great team like Blue Springs,” Broncos head coach Rhea Moses said. “Everyone was clicking and working together. We made sure we took care of the ball on our side of the net. We were being aggressive and it really worked.”</p><p>Moses said both games went back and forth with the two teams separated by just a couple of points, but the Broncos stuck to their game plan put the pressure on Blue Springs. </p><p>“They don’t make mistakes and they create mistakes on your floor,” Moses said, “but we stayed focused, kept our game plan and kept pecking away one point at a time.”</p><p>With Blue Springs not lacking in big hitters, North’s defense stepped up to the challenge. </p><p>“Our defense really, really stepped up tonight which created great balance for us,” Moses said. </p><p>Now, Moses hopes the win will catapult the Broncos in the right direction as they take on the second half of their conference schedule. </p><p>“It’s a great win for us. It’s the latter half of our season so it’s good timing as well,” she said. ”I hope we can keep building on this and play like this every time they go out and play.”</p><p><b>Tigers win in three</b></p><p>Despite some slow starts during Tuesday’s match with Blue Springs South, Lee’s Summit pulled out a three-game win, 25-20, 20-25, 25-16. </p><p>“All in all the kids did a good job fighting through getting down in some games,” Tigers head coach Roy Martin said. “We were able to fight back and got the lead and continued to build on that lead and play hard.”</p><p>The Tigers used a balanced attack in the third game to break open a close game and pull away. </p><p>“We were pretty neck and neck in the third game for a while but we were able to pull ahead and forced a few errors. We also capitalized with good digging and defensive play,” Martin said. </p><p>And after Monday’s game where they had trouble putting Blue Springs away in a game, Tuesday was a different story. </p><p>“Down the stretch we didn’t commit (errors),” Martin said. “We had a few stints where we lost our technique, but then we were able to reign it back in and get back into controlling the ball and using our technique.”</p><p>Sarah Borneman played a huge role in the win, taking over in the middle for Rachel Oziomek who was out sick. Borneman finished with nine kills, four aces, three block solos and three block assists. </p><p>“She’s really done a great job at the net for us,” Martin said. “She stepped up her game and minimized a lot of the errors she was making early in the season. She’s become one of our go-to hitters.”</p><p>Lacy Knipp led the Tigers with eight digs and Julia Myers had 30 assists. </p><p><b>Titans breeze by Blue Jays</b></p><p>Lee’s Summit West cruised through another Suburban Middle Six opponent on Tuesday, beating Raytown 25-8, 25-8. </p><p>“It’d be really easy for them to just take (conference teams) for granted, but I’ve been really pleased with the way they’ve come out focused,” Titans head coach Mark Rice said. “Even when Raytown did dig some balls and played it back, we still passed well and took care of the ball and did a good job of finishing plays.”</p><p>In both games the Titans were able to use their aggressiveness to go on big runs. </p><p>“We’d find ways to go on runs and kind of feel each other out to begin the games, and then we just kept going on runs,” Rice said. “Even when they served pretty aggressive at us we were siding out pretty well and being offensive with our serving. We got to experiment with some serving strategies.”</p><p>Katie Douglas led the way for the Titans with nine kills and Rice is hopeful she can be another solid hitter to go along with Paige Vanderpool, Haylee Gregory and Megan McGehee. </p><p>“She works really hard. She’s improving and every day she’s working hard,” Rice said. “We need her to be productive and she’s doing a good job.”</p><p>McGehee finished with seven kills and four blocks. Kaitlyn Drawe led with 20 assists. </p><p>West is now 21-2 on the season.