Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

LIZTON - The Western Boone volleyball team has been in some big matches over the past few seasons. So they knew exactly what they needed to do on Tuesday when they traveled to Tri-West with the Sagamore Conference title on the line. The Stars delivered, topping the Bruins 3-0 (25-22, 25-18, 25-19), to win the conference title for the second-straight year and ninth time in the last 14. "I really proud of all the girls, this was a total team effort," Western Boone head coach Laura Bragg said. "All of our hitters were involved and they all had some big kills tonight. That really got us going." Bragg said matches like that are important heading into the post-season. While Raegan Durbin lead the Stars in kills, WeBo has four or five other hitters that can take over a set or a match at any time. When things start getting tense in the post-season, that is an important attribute to have. "When our other hitters can pull a block or get some big kills, that opens everything up," Bragg said. "Having five amazing hitters is great, because Tri-West's block couldn't guess where the next set would go." The two teams had met two weeks ago at the end of the Brebeuf Invite, and the Bruins topped the Stars in the best-of-three match. Bragg said the Stars learned from that and got better from it. "That was a great wake-up call for us," Bragg said. "A loss can be a good thing if you learn from it and make changes. That's what we did. We adjusted some things, we had a good game plan coming in and the girls executed it." A third potential match-up could happen at the end of next week in the sectional final. The two teams are on opposite sides of the bracket. While it was important to win on Tuesday, Bragg knows it will be even bigger if they meet again. "In the post-season, everything is wiped clean and what happened in the regular season doesn't matter," Bragg said. "We can look back to last year, where we played Park Tudor at the end, then played them in the sectional final. It's going to be similar to that. Tri-West is a really good team, so we can celebrate winning conference tonight, but it's back to business tomorrow." The Stars conclude the regular season on Thursday against Plainfield, then are off until the following Saturday in the sectional. Bragg said there are a few things the Stars have to focus on in practice. "Our serving is going to be huge," Bragg said. "We have had some good service runs, but trying to put pressure but getting that first serve in has been an issue at times. We want to be a little more aggressive there, and then fine tuning our hitting and blocking too." Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems.