Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

DOVER - The Western Boone volleyball team knew it wasn't going to be easy facing Tri-West for the Sectional 25 title on Saturday night. But this special group wasn't ready for their season to come to an end just quite yet. Western Boone topped Tri-West 3-1 (25-17, 22-25, 25-21, 25-21) to win the sectional title. "That wasn't an easy at all," Western Boone head coach Laura Bragg said. "Tri-West's defense was impressive, they kept a lot of ball up that we thought were down. But that's a testament to our hitters, showing that they could keep going at them. They didn't get frustrated when the balls got dug up, and they kept that mentality that they were going to get the next one." Bragg said matches like Saturday are where the Stars' experience and success over the past few years pays big dividends. Saturday was the Stars 66th match in the past two seasons, and 51st win. That includes eight post-season matches in highly competitive atmospheres. "I think last year's success was a difference maker in this sectional," Bragg said. "I didn't see the nervousness and we had girls stepping up all over the place. Audrey (Dunn) played one of her best matches and was a difference maker and we took a lot of pressure off a lot of our hitters." Western Boone had plenty of girls step up. Raegan Durbin matched her career high with 27 kills, and added 16 digs. Dunn set her career high with 15 kills, and that was coming off 11 in the semifinal. Alayna Christner and Kennedy Kiger each had six kills, and Janie Ransom had 51 assists and 13 digs. There was one rally in the fourth set, where the Stars set three different girls in one sequence. While the Tri-West block got hands on the first two, they couldn't stop from pin to pin and Kiger put it down for to give the Stars the point. "The balance we have is an advantage," Bragg said. "Tonight, we knew most of their points were going to come from the pins, so we could cheat out a little bit. But teams can't really cheat out on us, because we have so many girls that can make a difference." Western Boone went up 1-0 in the match, using a 6-0 run to go up 11-4 and never looking back. Tri-West got no closer than six the rest of the way. The second set started being more back-and-forth. Western Boone led 10-7, but Tri-West came back to tie the set at 10. The set was then tied at 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 19, before the Bruins used a 4-1 spurt to go up 23-20 and held on from there. "That set was totally my fault, and I put the wrong line-up out there," Bragg said. "It was awesome to see the girls battle through that set even though it wasn't our line-up at all. We played it close, and once we got back into our regular line-up, we came back strong." Tied 4-4 in the third set, WeBo went on a 3-0 spurt going up 7-4 on a kill from Dunn. The Stars built the lead to 16-8, and Tri-West got as close as four on two occasions, and within three at 24-21, but the Stars finished it out. WeBo used that momentum in the fourth set as well. They came out of the gates firing, going up 7-1. Tri-West didn't go down quietly, getting within one at 10-9 and 19-18, but the Stars had the response every time. The Stars went up 21-18 in the fourth on a block by Christner, then went up 22-19 on a kill by Durbin. Up 23-21, Durbin finished it off with back-to-back kills. "We just focus on one point at a time," Bragg said. "One point in a set like that can put you up three, or cut it to one. We just wanted to make sure we stayed focused on one point at a time and not looking ahead to anything else." Elena Gubera had 22 digs for the Stars, who also had 11 from Chloe Gillan and seven from Kendal Ramey. Christner had three blocks and Kiger had two. Western Boone will face Northview in the regional semifinal at Monrovia. Start time is 10 a.m. The other semifinal is Speedway and Guerin Catholic. "We are going to focus on staying in system," Bragg said. "Tri-West has some really good hitters, so we were out of system more than normal tonight and didn't get our middles involved as much as I would like, but it's hard to stay in system against a team like Tri-West. So that is something we really want to focus on this week." Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems.