​Notre Dame Academy volleyball’s narrative over the last few weeks has been to play relaxed after a tough regular season.The Pandas hosted a scrappy Bishop Brossart team in front of a packed gym in Park Hills in the first round of the 2026 state tournament, coming away with a 25-16, 25-20, 25-14 win to advance to Friday evening’s state quarterfinals.”Our record – I guess we’re 26-11 now – is probably not a record that we’re used to but we really did have a strength of schedule and we played a lot of good teams to start the season,” Notre Dame co-coach Hannah Colvin said.Notre Dame got out to a fast start, using four runs of at least three points to take a 17-9 lead in the first set. Teagan Kondik, Makayla Roose and Emma Redlinger combined for 13 kills in the set and the Pandas registered five blocks.Brossart came around in the second set, rallying from a 19-14 deficit, thanks to a kill and a block from sophomore Audrey Arnold, forcing NDA to call its lone timeout of the match. The Pandas responded immediately with a Kondik kill and a Grout ace to stretch the lead back to five and held Brossart at bay to close out the set.For all the different looks that Brossart threw at the Pandas with its tall, versatile blockers, NDA was able to mix up the attack thanks to split-second communication from libero Kaia Tilden and setter Ellie Osterkamp.Kondik (13 kills, 16 digs, one block and one ace) and Roose (14 kills, four aces and five blocks) once again led the offense, firing cannonballs into the ground whenever they got the chance, but junior Emma Redlinger was a reliable third option with 10 kills. The junior, along with Ellie Breitling, Sophia Bramlage and Charlotte Verst, has really given the Pandas depth in the postseason and is seeing an increased role this season.”We really just wanted to show up for our team and go all out. We wanted to prove ourselves this year because last year, there were so many good people, but we really wanted to come out and prove ourselves and show that we are on this team for a reason,” Redlinger said.One of the most impressive stats of the night was Notre Dame serving nine total aces to just three service errors, winning 57.8 percent of its service points.”We were really just focusing on getting them out of system. Even when they were out of system, they were having to run their outsides a lot and I think that was beneficial for us to not have their middles as involved,” Colvin said.The Lady Mustangs got the majority of their production from freshman Evelyn Laker (15 kills) and Audrey Arnold (six kills and a block), limiting senior Callie Ritter to just three kills and a block. Brossart had just 28 kills as a team.Bishop Brossart’s seniors were the key to a historic seasonThe Lady ‘Stangs went 36-4 and earned their first state tournament berth since 2022 thanks to their seven seniors: Ritter, Aubrey Rebholz, Sienna Studer, Josie Reckner, Hailey Heitker, Claire Decker and Leah Robinson.Ritter obviously led the way as t