The Jackson Indians girls volleyball team defeated the Notre Dame Bulldogs three sets to one on Thursday at the Jackson High School Event Center.

The Indians have now bested Notre Dame six consecutive times with the last loss to the Bulldogs being a 3-2 match in the 2021 regular season.

Both set one and two began with an 11-4 Jackson run forcing the Bulldogs into early timeouts. The breaks helped Notre Dame very little as the Indians rolled to a 2-0 set lead.

Jackson head coach David Mirly said his team played so well because of their communication and team camaraderie.

“I'm exceptionally pleased with how we were mentally ready to play this game and how we communicated for most of the match. We had a great practice yesterday where we focused on communicating and getting back to just living in the moment, loving the moment, loving being with each other out there on the court,” Mirly said. “Practice yesterday was phenomenal and it carried over directly to tonight's game. We could see the love that they had for the game tonight and each other. We play really well when we do that.”

Despite the 2-0 deficit Notre Dame refused to go away quietly, keeping things close in set three before finding themselves down 23-20. The Bulldogs used a timeout and came back with a 5-0 run to claim the set three win 25-23.

Jackson responded in set four with a compelling 25-15 win to take home the 3-1 match victory. Mirly said Notre Dame is a great team and he is proud of how his team continued to fight after losing the third set.

“Notre Dame is always so good and they always play us so tough. Even after we won those first two sets, I knew they weren't going to go away even when we were up 11-5. They have too much pride over there and they're a really good volleyball team. It was a war after that, but they've done a great job at Notre Dame being very competitive,” Mirly said. “We passed exceptionally well at times and when we pass really well our setters are so good at distributing the ball, mixing things up, keeping the pace of the game very quick, and some teams can have a really hard time catching up with our hitters.”

Notre Dame hosts Park Hills Central at 6:30 p.m. on Monday while Jackson will travel to Cor Jesu Academy at 6 p.m. the same day.