The Crothersville volleyball team topped Borden 25-22, 25-14, 26-24 to advance to the Orleans Class 1A 61 Sectional on Thursday.
Tigers coach Linda Luedeman said a big key for her team was being able to stay close or take an early lead in Borden in each set.
“So many times, we would dig a big hole, either at the beginning or a game or in the middle, and that didn’t happen tonight,” Luedeman said. “It was a good win. I was really proud of the girls.
“Without that senior leadership that’s what we faced this season, but tonight we played like we had some seniors. They did a good job, and I was proud of them.”
In the first set, the Tigers doubled the score on Borden at 6-3 on a kill by Maddie Riley.
Borden was unable to score more than three consecutive points at any time in this set and held a 20-17 lead before the Tigers used a tip by Lacey Hall, an attacking error by the Braves, a kill by Nikki Hickman and an ace from Kashmir Kelshaw to take a 21-20 lead.
Borden tied the match at 21-21 and 22-22 before the Tigers closed the set on kills by Riley and Abby Mains.
In the second set, the Tigers used kills by Riley and Hickman and aces from Kelshaw and Hickman and took advantage of serving and attacking errors by the Braves to take a 15-7 lead.
After Borden closed to 15-12, the Tigers responded with a 4-0 rally of their own and held a 19-12 lead on a tip kill by Lamb. A kill by Katrina Christian gave the Tigers their 25th point.
The third set was close throughout as it was tied 12 times, the final time at 24-24 before the Tigers took a one-point lead on a Borden serving error, then claimed match point on a kill by Riley.
Crothersville had 17 kills with Riley getting eight and Hickman amassing five.
Luedeman said she felt like her team did a good job at the net, and that included blocking as Mains had two solos and six assists, and Lacey Hall was 4-2.
“We worked really hard this week in practice on and off court,” Luedeman said, “We talked about our strategy, and we talked about how we could play better. We went back to basics and worked on serve receive and they applied what we’ve been working on.”
She said it was good have a sectional match under their belts going into Saturday’s battle with Trinity. This will be the third match between the Tigers and Cougars, and trinity has won the first two.
Crothersville (12-15) will face Trinity Lutheran (19-9) in the 11 a.m. match on Saturday, and that will be followed by Medora (7-16) facing Orleans. The winners will meet at 7 p.m. for the championship.