By Jon Akre

605 Sports

RAPID CITY — The Monarchs and Wildcats put on a usual state tournament classic, but it's Warner who will play for the title.

Warner outlasted Northwestern in a five-set thriller advancing to the Class B state title match for the sixth consecutive season. The set scores were 25-16, 18-25, 25-17, 25-27 and 15-13 at the Summit Arena at the Monument.

“That was an incredibly exhausting match, but very fun,” said Warner coach Kari Jung. 

The Region 1B foes and usual top teams of Class B volleyball have met multiple times in the state tournament, including three five-set matches for the state championship (2017, ‘18 and ‘20).

While Friday’s semifinal match didn’t clinch a championship, the rivalry gave us another instant classic.

Grasping on to a 2-1 lead in set four, the Monarchs looked poised to close it out holding a 10-5 lead, but the Wildcats weren’t done yet. Northwestern battled back and took a commanding 22-19 lead, forcing a set five with a bruising 27-25 win.

“We knew it was going to be a battle and we got a little timid late in set four,” Jung said. “It was just a fun match because we knew it was going to be a lot of power coming at us and we knew we had to play our best defense ever.”

Jung added that she didn’t need to say much in the huddle before the deciding set as the veteran seniors Makenna Leidholt and Reagan Wood took control.

“I didn’t have to say a whole lot,” Jung said. “The seniors that were on the floor were telling them ‘Guys, we got this, we can do this, this is ours,’ and they wanted it so bad. We had a lot of guts in that fifth set.”

Warner took an 8-5 lead at the midway point before Northwestern climbed back to tie it at 13, but Warner’s Jaycee Jung came up clutch on back-to-back swings, recording her 24th and 25th kills and the win.

“Jaycee Jung did amazing this game,” Leidholt said. “Reagan did an amazing job pushing those balls out so Northwestern couldn’t get a good block on that and Jaycee just tooled it.”

And for Warner, who lost to Northwestern 3-1 on Sept. 11, it knew this go around with the Wildcats would look a little bit differently.

“It was a little bit early in the season, we’ve made a few changes since then and we knew they would be a lot better since then as well,” said Jung on the prior loss to Northwestern. “We had to mix it up a little bit more with our hitting, but we knew we had a chance. We lost to them in four early but we knew we had a chance because our young kids have really improved a ton.”

Kari Jung added that the early season loss to Northwestern also relieved some pressure off the Monarchs, creating an underdog mentality for Warner.

“They knew we came in as the underdog a little bit and I think they knew that took a little pressure off of us,” Jung said. “We knew that if we didn’t stay aggressive we weren’t going to have a chance at it.

Northwestern’s Ashley Haven had 12 kills, 23 digs and five blocks, Breelyn Satter tallied nine kills, five digs and four blocks, Ella Boekelheide had 35 assists with 15 digs, nine kills and four blocks, Lila Johnson netted 32 digs, nine kills, three aces and three blocks, Taylor Vetter had six kills and five digs while Tara Blachford recorded 16 digs to push her over 1,000 career digs in the loss.

The Wildcats will face Bennett County Saturday at 5 p.m., MT, in the third-place match.

Jung ended the night with a game-high 25 kills, adding 22 digs and four blocks as well. Leidholt had 11 kills and five digs while Wood dished out 26 assists with 17 digs.

Kaydee Mackner had 11 kills and seven digs, Tatum Hanson dished out 28 assists with 13 digs, Miah Leidholt had six blocks, six digs and five kills while Keira Steger had 26 digs in the win.

The Monarchs advance to the Class B state championship game for the sixth consecutive year, and will take on top-seeded Chester for the fourth consecutive year in the title match.

“We’re going to have to stop Van Hal and Wolf and we’re going to have to keep swinging and hopefully we can find some shots that work,” Jung said.

Chester has won the last two Class B titles, with both matches going five sets long.

“We want vengeance, they want their three-peat,” Leidholt said. “It’s going to be a good game, it’s going to be one to watch.”