With Hillary Estes being a big girl on campus as an eighth-grader in Nixa's junior high gym four years ago, wide-eyed sixth-grader Chloe Judd approached her with a glowing compliment.
"She told me I was her inspiration," Estes said.
Estes and Judd are now playing together for the first and only time in their varsity careers. They teamed to make Tuesday a memorable night in Nixa's comeback victory at Ozark.
The Lady Eagles outlasted the Lady Tigers 25-22, 21-25, 23-25, 25-22, 15-13.
Down the stretch, Nixa couldn't do much about Ozark's Tara Venable, but handled about every other Lady Tigers attack at the net. Estes and Judd were a big reason why.
Judd accounted for six blocks and Estes four. Just as importantly, they got their hands on many other Ozark hits. Their touch-blocks repeatedly deflected the ball to Nixa's back row and set the Lady Eagles up for success.
"As a blocker, it's easy to have the mentality that you're only successful if your block goes in on the other side and you get points off the block," Nixa coach Annie Zimmerman said. "We talk to our kids how blockers have to find success in the positive touches and positive funneling of the ball to where we want it to go. Finding success in that is a big deal. It's not an official stat, but we record our positive touches. We celebrate those."
"Positive touches, we count those as good as stuff blocks," Estes said. "Me and Chloe have worked a lot on getting to our right-side blocker and pressing hard to get, if not a stuff-block, a touch, so our defenders can get an easy dig."
"We got a lot of block touches and capitalized on a lot of them," setter Jacy Bray said. "We used their positive touches to get kills."
Nixa received 18 kills, including the final kill on the night, from Norah Clark, 14 from Judd, 13 from Maddie Golmen and 10 from Estes. Judd posted a .483 kill percentage and Estes a .476.
As Estes pointed out, Nixa's block-touches indirectly led to kills for herself and Judd.
"If you're getting block touches, it makes it easier for you to get a swing off," she said. "In the middle you don't get set unless you're in-system."
Estes and Judd were quite a combo. They are looking to make the most of their one season together as 6-foot-0 middle hitter 'mates.
"It's special getting to play with her in her last year.," Judd said of Estes, a senior. "She always has a positive attitude and is a good person in general. She's a great friend."
"Now that I get to play with Chloe, it's so special and I'm so glad we get this one year together," Estes said. "Everyone calls us twins, they don't know which one of us is which."
Nixa (13-3) has won six straight since being swept by Ozark 2-0 at the Springfield Tournament two weeks ago.
The teams may meet again later this season at the Ozark Grand Slam and at Districts.
For almost all of the Lady Eagles, this is their first experience playing in the Nixa-Ozark rivalry. With the exception of libero Emma Conrad, the rest of them were backups on a senior-dominated Nixa squad a year ago.
"Any time you have a talented senior class that is playing the majority of the time, you're waiting your turn and you can be learning and getting better and better," Zimmerman said. "I knew it would take our team a while to find everybody's roles. Now, we're starting to figure that out."
Bray turned in 50 assists, 13 digs, four blocks, one ace and one block.
"That's the best I've seen us play as a team together," Bray said. "Tonight was really big about saying, 'We're still Nixa and we're still really good.'"
