Thursday night’s girls’ volleyball match between Peninsula Catholic High School and Nansemond-Suffolk Academy was supposed to be a competitive showdown between two top teams at the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Division II level.

Instead, the Lady Saints turned it into a blowout. There were a few lead changes in the opening game, but NSA took off in games two and three for a 3-0 home win: 25-18, 25-10, 25-7.

“My whole team played really well,” NSA senior outside hitter Kaylor Nash said. “There wasn’t one person that particularly stuck out. Everybody worked together and played their best and played their hardest, and because of that we had the outcome we did.”

Lady Saints head coach Robyn Ross said the goal coming into the match was to minimize errors after NSA committed too many earlier in the week against Walsingham Academy.

“We only had four hitting errors the entire match, which is huge against a team that is bigger than us and has that good of a block,” Ross said.

Explaining why it was a such a dominant win against a difficult opponent, the coach said, “I think is a testament to how hard these girls work in preparing for each team that they are about to play, and also what they did over the weekend in Flint Hill is proving to have sort of filtered down into the way that they’re playing everybody.”

This past weekend, NSA went 5-0 against Division I and top Division II opponents, including toppling defending Division I state champion and previously undefeated Flint Hill School.

Nash was sensational all night. She responded to the very first serve of the game with a dig and a kill, and ended the entire match with an ace. She produced 17 kills, 10 digs and four aces in all.

“Lizzy Fowler had her best match since coming back after last year,” Ross said, alluding to Fowler’s sidelining injury. “She came out swinging and had a great night offensively.”

Fowler, a junior middle blocker, had four kills and three blocks.

Junior outside hitter Kaitlin Werner drew praise for her service runs and tremendous offense midway through the match.

“That momentum shift in the second game was huge for us, and a lot of that came from her kills,” Ross said.

She had six kills, most coming in the second game, when Ross said she and junior middle blocker Caylin Harris essentially owned the net. Harris ended up with seven kills and three blocks.

Ross said one of the reasons the Lady Saints gave Peninsula Catholic so many problems was that NSA has so many players who can score.

“When we’re playing a big team like that, I have to make sure that they don’t know where we’re going to set,” she said. “Brooks (Gillerlain) did a good job of spreading the ball out and not telegraphing where we were going to go.”

Gillerlain, the junior setter, finished with 35 assists and eight digs.

The NSA team has enjoyed a significant amount of success this year so far, and while both coach and players remain steadfast in avoiding any sort of overconfidence, Ross took a moment to express appreciation for the support the squad received on Thursday.

“We had a bigger crowd there than we probably had all year,” she said on Friday. “It’s so much more fun for these girls to play in front of people who are enjoying watching them do so well.”

Nansemond-Suffolk (23-2, 3-0) visits Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School on Tuesday.