By Justin Fedich | The Selma Times-Journal

Meadowview had a chance to beat one of the best teams in the area, but the Trojans were unable to shake perhaps their toughest opponent of the season.

The Trojans (11-3) were defeated at home in a hard-fought four set match by the New Life Christian Eagles (22-0) Monday 25-18, 22-25, 18-25, 21-25. After winning the first set, Meadowview couldn’t break through in any of the following three sets to beat the reigning state champions.

Meadowview found itself down early in the first set, but took an 8-7 lead after a Shelby Boswell hit. Christina Dabit added three kills in the first set.

Tayler Roberts blocked a ball off her head to tie the score at 12-12. Dabit served an ace to give the Trojans a 14-13 lead and extended the lead with two hits to give Meadowview a 20-15 advantage.

Mallory Freine added a one-handed block to give Meadowview a 23-17 lead.

“The first game we really played well,” head coach Tim Burton said. “We had very few unforced errors.”

The Eagles took a 13-9 lead in the second set. Emily Skelton served to tie the set at 13 all. New Life fought off Meadowview, despite two kills each from Roberts and Dabit.

The third set started on a positive note for Meadowview as Maggie Tipton dove for a ball while already on the ground. After losing the lead, Freine had a kill to tie the set 10-10.

“Mallory Freine was kind of on top of her game,” Burton said. “She seemed like she was doing really good.”

New Life pulled away after taking a commanding lead in the set.

Despite getting off to a big deficit in the fourth set, the Trojans fought back. Trailing 14-10, Dabit hit two well-placed sets to lower the deficit to two. Freine served an ace after trailing 15-18. Down 19-20, Roberts had a kill that tied up the set 20-20.

New Life took five of the next six points and the match was over in four sets. Burton was proud of the way his team played in its second loss to New Life this season.

“They never really got down on themselves this time. They stayed up the whole time,” Burton said.

Meadowview’s next match is at Chilton Christian at 4:30 p.m.