ROCHELLE — The Rochelle Lady Hub varsity volleyball team leaned on its service rallies to hang tough during Thursday evening’s nonconference match against the Dixon Duchesses.

Rochelle recorded eight service aces and pressured the Dixon defense with its serve throughout most of the evening, enabling the Lady Hubs to extend Thursday’s match to a third set. But a combination of receiving errors and hitting errors from the Rochelle side allowed Dixon to take a late lead in the third set and ultimately hand the Lady Hubs a 20-25, 25-21, 22-25 loss. 

Senior Taelynn Rodeghero totaled three service aces, while senior Ali Ohlinger and junior Emori Mickley each added two service aces for the Lady Hubs. Rochelle (1-1, 0-0 Interstate 8) will return to action with a home match against the Oregon Hawks on Tuesday evening at 6 p.m.

“Dixon’s a really scrappy team and they showed us that we have to be more scrappy and more reactive instead of hesitant,” head coach Molly Sly said. “When we get our serves in, we usually rally off a lot of points. Ali [Ohlinger] has a fantastic serve and both Taelynn [Rodeghero] and Dempsey [Atkinson] rally off a lot of points. When they’re on, our team feeds off of those three.”

Dixon controlled the second half of the opening set, forcing two Rochelle timeouts and stringing together a 6-0 run to take a 24-15 lead. The Duchesses capitalized on mistakes by the Lady Hubs, who totaled nine receiving errors along with six service errors, most of which came in the first set. Despite conceding the opening set, Rochelle closed the set on a 4-1 run and carried that momentum into the second set, where service aces sparked an 11-5 run early in the set.

“We love having this tough competition early in the season,” Sly said. “It helps us build mental strength. We were down in all three sets and we found ways to bring it back and make it close. We made them call timeouts late in the match and that was awesome to see from our girls.”

Although Dixon rallied to tie the second set at 12-12, Rochelle broke off a 6-0 run shortly after, displaying strong defense both up front and in the back row. Juniors Audyn Kemp and Kyrie Cragin stepped up in the middle, combining for six blocks with Kemp totaling four blocks on her own. Senior Dempsey Atkinson added a team-high 11 digs to anchor the back-row defense.

A kill from Cragin clinched the second set for the Lady Hubs, who saw Mickley emerge in the third set with a series of key serves in her one rotation. In a back-and-forth third set, Dixon ultimately took control late, as the errors that hurt Rochelle early in the match resurfaced near the end. Rochelle took a timeout with Dixon leading 19-15, but a short 3-1 run in the final moments wasn’t enough to prevent the Duchesses from taking the victory on Thursday.

Rodeghero led the Rochelle offense with nine kills while adding nine digs on defense. Junior Meredith Bruns stepped up with six kills, most of which came from the right side, while Ohlinger chipped in six kills and dished out 17 assists. Cragin totaled three kills without a hitting error.