9-09-2026 3:46am

VOLLEYBALL: Saline Wins on the Road at Pioneer

Saline opened the SEC Red season against a tough Pioneer team and came away with a 25-14, 25-23, 16-24 and 25-15 victory. It was an important win after falling to Milford in five sets last week.

Volleyball saline 3, pioneer 1 Gallery 9/8/26 - thesalinepost

"I thought we did a good job executing and we had a mental battle there in the third set that, if you followed our Milford match, we were able to conquer that adversity and get it done in four sets," Saline head coach Erik Rodriguez said.

This Pioneer team played Saline tough.

"I had a lot of these girls on my club team at Huron Valley and this is probably the best Pioneer team in the last 15 years," Rodriguez said. And they're young too. "So they'll get better."

Saline overcame an early deficit in the first set, took control and won handily.

"Our mismatch was in the middle tonight and we he were able to run it, we handled things well," Rodriguez said.

It seemed like the second set might be the same, but Pioneer hung tougher and kept Saline from running away with anything. In the third set, Pioneer again built an early lead, but this time, the Pioneers refused to relent.

Last week, Saline won the first two matches against Milford and then watches as they came back to win. A feisty Pioneer team looked like it might try to repeat the trick, but Saline held strong. Charlotte Keyes scored two early kills for a 2-0 lead. Maiya Heinemann landed a hard kill for a 4-3 lead. The set was tied at 13 when Saline went on a four-point run, capped by a Keyes smash. Pioneer never recovered.

Up 17-15, Lexi Newton stepped to the service line. She served out, scoring at least two aces on the way to victory.

Sophomore Charlotte Keyes dominated the game at times with blocks and hits from the middle. Rodiguez aslo praised the play of Newton and Lindsey Nagle but noted that "everyone played well."

Volleyball saline 3, pioneer 1 Gallery 9/8/26 - thesalinepost