Aberdeen Roncalli bucked a recent trend by taming the Belle Fourche Broncs on Friday evening.

The Cavaliers snapped a three-year losing streak against Belle Fourche with a 25-13, 25-8, 25-14 non-conference volleyball victory at an usually quiet Roncalli Gym.

With the Roncalli football team playing at Groton coupled with an early start time for the volleyball match, the atmosphere was much different than normal.

“It’s definitely hard without a good support system with us out in the stands,” said Roncalli junior Ava Danielson. “It’s just hard to stay energized because we don’t have bunch of other people cheering us on, especially with our student section of like two. It’s definitely hard to just stay motivated and keep that energy up when the atmosphere is just so quiet.”

In fact, the surroundings were so silent that it actually impacted the way the Cavaliers went about business against the Broncs.

“When they called a time out, I told the girls, what’s one thing that we can work on? And they said talking, We can definitely work on talking,” said Roncalli coach Leesa Ware. “But then Ava Hanson kind of perked up and she goes, yeah, but coach if I talk to any one of the players, everybody is going to hear it. It’s basically like whispering around. She’s like I got to whisper, just the energy in the building. The energy was definitely down, the momentum was down, the talking was down, and I think it was just because the energy in the building was down.”

While the energy was down, Roncalli’s serve percentage was way up. The Cavaliers pounded out 16 aces, led by Maddie Huber with eight.

That set the tone for the match as the Broncs were never able to get on track offensively.

“We do stress serving a lot during practice,” Danielson said. “That’s one thing that we do work on a lot. It’s very repetitive for us.”

Danielson said she pays attention to where the open spots are on the floor when she serves the ball.

“If I can see that the middle of the court is wide open, then I’m going to go as short as I can to make them move their feet,” Danielson said.

She also has an idea of where to serve the ball before she even gets to the gym.

“Also with watching film, too, I also pay attention to those girls that struggle with serve receive and I can see who to kind of go to,” Danielson said.

Ava Hanson and Rylee Voeller each added three aces serves in the contest to lead a balanced attack.

“Everybody was kind of on the scoreboard as far as serving went,” Ware said.

The Cavaliers improved to 7-6 on the season the victory. Roncalli hosts Britton-Hecla on Thursday to start the back end of the season with many important matches on the horizon.

“We’ve just been kind of talking about staying aggressive, and just kind of maintaining and excuting. Most important is just staying aggressive on the court, whether that be serving, hitting,” Ware said. “I think that our defense has come a long ways. We’re picking up some things that I’ve never seen us pick up before. The upcoming weeks that’s going to be pivotal as far as seed points go.”

Serving: Aberdeen Roncalli: 66-71 16 aces (Maddie Huber 21-21 8 aces, Ava Hanson 12-13 3 aces, Rylee Voeller 13-15 3 aces).

Hitting: Aberdeen Roncalli 82-98 22 kills (Voeller 17-17 7 kills, McKenna O’Keefe 26-34 6 kills).

Setting: Aberdeen Roncalli 66-66 10 assists (Huber 51-51 10 assists).

Digs: Aberdeen Roncalli 58 (Huber 16, Voeller 11, Hanson 11).

Blocks: Aberdeen Roncalli 2 solo 4 assists (Hanson 1 solo 2 assists, Karsyn Davis 1 solo 1 assist).

Records: Belle Fourche 3-13; Aberdeen Roncalli 7-6.