The Nansemond-Suffolk Academy girls’ volleyball team made a huge statement over the weekend to the rest of the state and themselves.

Competing in the Ninth Annual Flint Hill Invitational in Oakton, the Lady Saints played all five of their matches on Saturday and became tournament champions by winning them all.

“This weekend I think they finally saw and believed what I‘ve been telling them all along and that is if we have a game plan, we stick to it, that we can beat anybody,” NSA head coach Robyn Ross said.

The Lady Saints started out by defeating Fredericksburg Christian School, 25-21, 25-18. According to the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association weekly poll released on Sept. 24, Fredericksburg was ranked No. 2 among Division II schools, right behind NSA.

Next, the Lady Saints were victorious, 25-15, 25-18, over the same poll’s No. 4-ranked Division I school, Liberty Christian Academy, which lost in five sets last year in the D1 state championship game.

After downing a couple more D1 opponents, NSA faced its host, Flint Hill School. The 2012 Division I state champions, who were No. 1 in the poll for D1 schools, were undefeated in 2013 until they fell on Saturday to Nansemond-Suffolk, 25-23, 25-20. The Lady Saints concluded all five matches without dropping a single set.

“It was just a really fun thing to watch, as a coach, when your team puts everything together at one time,” Ross said. “It doesn’t happen very often.”

NSA senior outside hitter Kaylor Nash said she thought what the team did “proves that we can definitely do anything we put our minds to this year. It was really exciting beating the No. 1 Division I school.”

Flint Hill certainly put up a fight. The Lady Huskies led by five points in the first game when Ross called a timeout. She told her team, “’We’re not really sticking to what we decided was going to be our game plan here,’ and they went back out and Kaitlin Werner was serving and had maybe three aces and before you know it, it was tied and they just took off.”

Nash said the Lady Huskies were tall and produced big blocks. To beat them, she said, “We worked really hard and we played really smart and picked apart their weaknesses.”

Ross watched with her team as Flint Hill played its semifinal match, and she studied them. She picked out two girls she wanted her players serving to, not necessarily because they simply appeared to be weaker passers, but because one was a heavy hitter. Ross wanted that girl busy passing rather than lining up a perfect hit.

These were the girls Werner served to.

Flint Hill played some of its matches on Friday, easing its burden on Saturday compared to Nansemond-Suffolk’s five-match schedule.

Ross said her team did not play great in the morning, but in the end against Flint Hill, “I was just really impressed at the way that they held themselves together and came back from being down and finished.”

Nash was named MVP of the tournament after registering 44 kills, 47 digs, eight aces and two blocks in five matches. Junior middle blocker Caylin Harris, who had some key blocks to spur the second game win against Flint Hill, ended up with 31 kills and 10 blocks. Both she and junior setter Brooks Gillerlain were named to the All-Tournament Team. Gillerlain had 112 assists, 26 digs and five aces.

Ross said everyone on her team played well, and out of her four seasons coaching at NSA, “This is by far the strongest team.”

But she said they cannot allow the big wins to put them into an “ego-induced coma” for the rest of the season. The team got right back to work with a hard practice on Monday, and her players seemed to be on the same page.

“I think now we have to work even harder because everyone is going to be out to get us,” Gillerlain said.

Nansemond-Suffolk (22-2, 2-0) beat Walsingham Academy on Tuesday evening and hosts defending VISAA Division II state champions Peninsula Catholic High School on Thursday.