KARAH FISHER (14) gets congratulated by her Benicia High teammates during Tuesday’s volleyball match against Vacaville.

Benicia High’s varsity volleyball team demonstrated it’s more than ready for the Solano County Athletic Conference season by knocking off previously undefeated Vacaville, 25-18, 23-25, 25-18, 25-19, in a non-league match at Benicia on Tuesday.

The Lady Panthers (2-0), who open SCAC play Thursday at Bethel, turned back several Vacaville challenges in the final two sets to win for the 30th time in the past 32 matches dating back to the beginning of last season.

“We came off a holiday weekend and it showed a little bit with our inconsistency in the beginning,” said Benicia head coach Jamie Hadenfeldt. “But any time we made a bad play, we would take a deep breath and get it back together. We did a good job against adversity and didn’t let the match get away.”

Benicia had little trouble finding offense with Jessica Blakeman, Charlotte Cannizzaro and Emily Maher leading the charge. Blakeman finished with 21 kills and 13 digs while Cannizzaro chipped in with 11 kills and five blocks. Maher added another nine kills for the Lady Panthers.

“We have three different setters and it’s hard to adjust to different sets, but I think we’ll get the hang of it,” Blakeman said. “We just have to play more together and we’ll come together as a team.”

After easily winning the first set, Benicia fell behind 22-17 in the second set before rallying to take a 23-22 lead. Vacaville, however, rolled off three consecutive points to steal the set.

“Our serve receive was bad at first, but once we started getting our passes we played way better and got more good hits,” Blakeman said.

The Lady Panthers trailed 11-9 in the third set before a nice service run by Ramona Glatzel and strong net play by Blakeman, Cannizzaro, Maher, Lana Gore and Taylor Lokey keyed a 10-1 run. Benicia led by only two late in the fourth set when Blakeman ripped off three kills to give the Lady Panthers a 23-18 lead. A kill by Gore finally finished off the Lady Bulldogs (3-1).

Glatzel finished with 14 digs while Karah Fisher dished out 27 assists.

“They’re our best competition outside of league and it felt good to beat them,” Blakeman said of the Vacaville match.

“It was definitely nice to get some good competition before the start of league on Thursday,” Hadenfeldt added.

The Lady Panthers have won 56 consecutive SCAC matches and have gone undefeated in conference play three years in a row. Bethel has only beaten the Lady Panthers once in its history (Sept. 13, 2011 at Bethel) and has lost 11 straight matches in the series.

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