When St. Anne’s-Belfield volleyball needed a key kill or a key block Tuesday afternoon, Khamare Steppe was there to deliver against Veritas, helping boost the No. 4-seeded Saints to a 3-0 win over the Lions in the LIS quarterfinals.
“She’s definitely a critical member of both our offense and defense and she had an incredibly consistent game tonight,” said STAB coach Charlotte Devine. “She’s a blocking powerhouse for sure — and hitting.”
Steppe notched 12 kills and was in on seven total blocks, with four of them coming on solo efforts. Steppe’s dominance at the net helped push the Saints to comfortable 25-16, 25-15, 25-15 victories in the three game sweep.
“Tonight was a massive team effort,” Devine said. “The focus was great and everyone contributed to the success.”
The easy wins came in part because of strong performances at the service line, including a couple of key runs by Luciana Matos and Kalli Monahan. Matos’ run was in game one and put the Saints in complete control of game one while Monahan’s came at the start of game two and put the Saints up 8-0 out of the gate. That’s been a point of emphasis of late for the Saints who’ve occasionally run into some serving struggles.
“We have been focusing on serving because we have a young team and it’s definitely more of a focus issue than an execution issue for us,” Devine said. “They totally brought it tonight, the practice really paid off.”
Matos led the Saints with five aces on the day and also chipped in 12 digs and four kills. Monahan, the Saints’ setter, had four aces to go with her 23 assists and seven digs.
Jordan Spencer had 18 digs and seven kills while Olivia Kushkin had two aces and was in on three blocks and Matrha Oakey notched 11 digs.
The Saints advance to the LIS semifinals where they’ll face No. 1 St. Catherine’s Wednesday at 5 p.m.
