In last week’s Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division volleyball opener, the Wildcats yielded 24 service aces to Menlo-Atherton. And the opening set of Woodside’s home opener Tuesday against Burlingame was no different.

“M-A has really good servers,” Woodside head coach Sonja Gavioli said. “But of course 24 is unacceptable no matter who they are. And the first set today as well.”

Burlingame scored five aces in a Game 1 win. But as Woodside junior Sarah Strus stepped to the service line after an early timeout in the second set, she was all smiles, and even couldn’t help laughing mid-serve at something one of her teammates cracked from the sideline.

Strus ultimately had reason to smile, going on an seven-point service run, including three aces of her own, as the Wildcats (1-1 PAL Bay, 7-4 overall) bounced back for a four-set victory 15-25, 25-11, 25-21, 25-19 over reigning league champion Burlingame, marking the Panthers’ first league loss since Oct. 27, 2016.

While Strus sparked the Game 2 turnaround, it was outside hitter Elena Campbell who ignited the fiery Woodside offense. Recovering from illness, Campbell didn’t score a kill in the opening set. Over the final three sets, she blew up for a match-high 19 kills.

“She’s the leader of the team,” Gavioli said. “She didn’t get a kill in the first set and that’s partly why we didn’t play well. … I’m happy with how she played but she’s usually super spectacular.”

Campbell’s first kill of the evening was the first service point of Strus’ run in Game 2, an impressive back-row pipe to give the Wildcats a 2-1 lead. A kill through the middle by senior Mckenna Brown and three Strus aces later, and Woodside never looked back in the set.

A change at the libero position also helped Woodside right the ship, especially with serve receive. Senior Maddie Mendes is one of three players platooning at the position this season, so donning the libero’s jersey mid-match is nothing new for her. She went on to tab 11 serve receives against just two receiving errors, and also added nine digs.

The biggest difference was “the attitude of the team and the spirit,” Mendes said. “We picked it up because we knew we had to.”

For Burlingame (1-1, 4-7), a marked turnover has affected the team greatly from its undefeated run through PAL Bay Division play a year ago. In addition to hiring a new head coach in K’Lynn Solt, the team graduated five key seniors, including the league’s MVP in Natalie Ballout — now a freshman at UC Santa Barbara — and also saw an exodus of expected returning players, with several non-seniors from last year’s squad quitting the team.

“Definitely at the beginning of the season, we discussed our goals for the season and [the winning streak in league] was briefly mentioned,” Burlingame senior captain Caroline Smith said. “But we just set out to do as well as we could and to get as far as we could. But it’s a different group of girls … so it definitely wasn’t a main goal of ours.”

Burlingame, at times, was in disarray Tuesday. The Panthers committed 33 unforced errors in the match, including 24 errors in the field.

And the landslide in Game 2 didn’t help the team’s morale.

“We have a tendency to get down and have trouble getting out of that,” Solt said. “That’s a team chemistry thing we’re still working on.”

Despite the Wildcats’ serve-receive troubles, they played remarkably clean in the field. Woodside committed 21 unforced errors, including just 13 field errors. Over the final three sets, Woodside totaled 41 team kills to Burlingame’ 24.

Game 3 saw an early back-and-forth but, with the score tied 8-8, Strus found the floor with a cross-shot off the left side. The Wildcats wouldn’t trail again in the set. Burlingame drew close at 15-13 on a block by senior Melanie Pitzer. But Campbell answered with a roll shot out of the back row to spark a four-point Woodside run.

In Game 4, Burlingame took an early 9-5 lead. Woodside responded with an 8-1 run, including a Strus kill off the left side to tie it 10-10, followed by three straight aces by Campbell. The Wildcats rolled from there.

Campbell finished with a double-double, adding a match-high 15 digs.

Smith fronted Burlingame with a double-double, totaling 13 kills and 10 digs. Senior libero Kaitlyn Ngai shared the match-high with 15 digs.

“I think we played well,” Smith said. “But serve receive, we were all over the place at times. And just being able to see it through to the end, I think there’s room for improvement there.”