BORDEN — BORDEN – Henryville and New Washington advanced to Saturday morning’s Borden Volleyball Sectional semifinals with victories on Thursday.

Henryville had little trouble downing Rock Creek Christian Academy, 25-11, 25-14 and 25-11, while New Washington won the final three sets to beat South Central in four sets, 11-25, 25-20, 26-24, 29-27.

The Hornets and Mustangs will meet with a trip to the sectional final on the line with Borden and Lanesville meeting in the other semifinal. The championship game will be played at 7 p.m. on Saturday.



HENRYVILLE – ROCK CREEK CHRISTIAN ACADEMY

Haley Hall served an ace for the final point of the match, giving Henryville a season-high 19 as a team.

Ashley Dickerson had 11 aces, including seven during one service game in the third set, when she turned the Hornet lead from 1-0 to 12-0 with 11 straight service points.

“(Dickerson) is a phenomenal athlete,” Hornet coach Shallon Willen said. “She works her tail off and does everything she can to make the team better.”

Dickerson opened the match with aces on its first three services points of the match and gave Henryville an early 4-0 lead. The Hornets had 11 aces in the first set.

“All season, I’ve been preaching aggressive serving,” Willen said. “We work on serving every day. We don’t have the greatest hitters or the greatest athletes in the world, so it’s very important that we serve well.”

The Hornets dominated the first and third sets, but they had a hard time shaking Rock Creek in the second set. That was largely because of the play of senior Kenicka Quarles, who Lion coach Sara Winslow called the team Most Valuable Player. The senior had six blocks, two digs, an ace and a kill to help the Lions to a 10-10 apiece early in the set. However, a kill by Dickerson and back-to-back aces by Hall helped give the Hornets a 15-10 lead.

“I thought we played really well,” Willen said. “There were only about three points all night where we had communication breakdowns. That’s been our biggest problem all season, so (only having three) was good.”

Sophomore Erika Robertson led Henryville in kills with eight. She also had four digs and two aces.

“She played really well and really hard,” Willen said. “She wanted tonight. She came through tonight.”

Georgia Lacy led all Hornets with 12 digs and Dickerson added seven. Lacy and Allison Knox each had two blocks for the Hornets.

Quarles led the Lions with a team-high nine blocks. Sophomore Kelli Davidson had team-high 11 digs and seven kills. She also finished with six blocks.



NEW WASHINGTON – SOUTH CENTRAL

After losing the first set, 25-11, five New Washington seniors decided they didn’t want to play their last games as Mustangs.

“It took a little bit of an adjustment to get warmed up,” New Wash senior Lindsay Krohn said. “(After the first set), we knew we had to pick it up and we played much better.”

“We knew we could play better, it was just a matter of just waking up,” fellow-senior Kala Dieterlen added.

South Central, which had beaten the Mustangs in four sets just a week ago, jumped out 6-0 and 11-1 leads to cruise to the first set win. New Wash coach Gary Graham said he knew he had to make some adjustments.

“I was concerned after the first set, not because we lost but because we played so poorly,” said Graham, who encouraged his team to make safer serves following the opening set. “I beat them up pretty good (between sets) and I think they responded well.”

In the second set, it was Krohn, in particular, who responded.

Tied a 6-6, Krohn served three consecutive aces to give New Washington its first multi-point advantage of the match. She followed her aces with three kills later in the set as the Mustangs pulled away for a 25-20 second-set triumph.

“I thought she took it upon herself to be more of a presence offensively,” Graham said. “In the long run, I think her play was probably the difference.”

Krohn continued to play well in the third with six early kills to give the Mustangs a 9-5 lead. New Wash led by as much as 16-11 before South Central scored six consecutive points to take a 17-16 lead. Once again, a Graham rant caused a turnaround.

“During the run, I kept debating whether to call a timeout,” Graham recalled. “After the timeout, I think they responded.”

The Mustangs broke a 17-17 tie with back-to-back aces by Dieterlen. New Wash had two set points, but two Mustang errors made it 24-24. A Charissa Brewer kill gave the Mustangs a third set point. This time, the Rebels couldn’t return Casey Johnson’s return and New Washington led two sets to one.

The fourth set was even crazier. Neither team led by more than three points throughout the set, and the two sides were tied at six, seven, 11, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25,26 and 27. During the set, New Washington had three match points and South Central had two set points before back-to-back kills by Dieterlen finished off the Rebels.

“We did not want it to go into a fifth set,” Krohn said.

Krohn finished with 17 kills, 16 digs and six blocks, while Brewer added 13 kills. Casey Johnson had a team-high 25 assists to go with five aces in the victory.

In order to win the sectional, New Washington will likely have to two more matches to teams it suffered losses to in the regular season — Henryville then Southern Athletic Conference champion and sectional-host Borden.

“We’ve made that our mantra,” Graham said about knocking off three consecutive conference opponents that beat the Mustangs during the regular season. “That’s what we’re going to have to do if the girls want to succeed.”

“Henryville beat us in the regular season, but South Central did, too,” Dieterlen said. “So this gives us confidence.”

“This game will really help us get ready for Henryville,” Krohn added.