HURON The Mount Vernon/Plankinton Titans are headed back to the Class A State Volleyball Tournament, on the strength of a 3-1 win over the Groton Area Tigers in a SoDak 16 game Tuesday night at Huron Arena. Set scores for the Titans, who will take a record of 27-6 into next weeks state tournament, were 25-15, 25-19, 18-25 and 25-14. Groton Area ends the season with a record of 19-7.
The Titans were runners up in 2015, the programs last trip to the A.
The first set was very close in the early going, as neither team could put more than a two-point gap of daylight into the lead.
With the score knotted at 13-all, MV/P got a two-point run to go up 15-13. Groton Area responded to cut the margin in half, but then the Titans, on the huge right arm of senior outside hitter Regan Rus, outscored the Tigers 10-1 to take the first set, 25-15.
The second set followed somewhat the same script, although both teams had difficulty getting the serve game going. The Tigers benefitted from numerous MV/P hitting and serving errors to stay close in the match, but down the stretch, the Titan defense continually refused to allow the ball to find the floor and MV/P ended the set on a 5-2 run to take the 25-19 win.
Groton Area came out more focused to begin the third set, racing to a quick 4-0 lead and prompting a Titan timeout. Out of the break, MV/P looked to re-establish its momentum, going on a 7-2 run to take a narrow lead. The teams traded points until the midway point in the set, when two straight Tiger hitting errors and a Rus big swing put the Titans up 1-11.
Groton Area fought back and tied the score at 15-all, prompting the second Titan timeout of the set. From there, it was all Tigers, as they closed the set on a 10-3 run, with freshman hitter Chesney Weber and senior r hitter Laila Roberts doing most of the heavy lifting, as the Tiger kill attempts began to find space on the MV/P side of the court, as Groton Area took set three 25-18.
Set four started the same as the first three had, and the teams found themselves tied at 6-6 early in the going. An 11-2 run mid-set, however, powered the Titans to a double-digit lead, at 17-7. While Groton Area attempted to rally, the kill attempts that were falling in the third set were bouncing back at them in the fourth and kills from Rus and Brooklyn Bosma closed out the 25-14 match winner that sent the Titans into the Class A State Tournament, set for Nov. 21-23 at the Denny Sanford PREMIERE Center in Sioux Falls, with a first round opponent still to be determined.
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