Jacob Shannon is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Gilbert Classical Academy for AZPreps365.com.

The No. 18 Ganado Hornets volleyball defeated the No. 15 Gilbert Classical Academy Spartans 3-1 (25-20, 22-25, 25-15, 25-23) at home Tuesday to advance to the 2A State Tournament. The Hornets’ intensity at the net, thanks in large part to the play of senior middle hitter Mya Dalgai, proved to be too strong for the Spartans throughout the match, who were unable to slow down the Hornets’ intense offense. 

“It’s always exciting to win in the first round in the state tournament,” Hornets head coach Jerome Burns said. “The Spartans are a tough team, so to win against a quality team like this helps boost our momentum a lot.” 
Gilbert Classical head coach Sierra Baker said the Spartans’ biggest problem all night long was covering hitters and finding open spots in the Hornets’ defense. 

“We weren’t reading the court and we kept attacking spots where their players were already set up,” Baker said. “We kept giving them easy balls to set up for their players and we tried to fix it, but it just wasn’t happening.” 
This problem was evident in a key sequence in the fourth set. At 20-20, Hornets senior middle hitter Mya Dalgai recorded two separate blocks on kill attempts from Spartans outside hitters Keely Sorensen and Mia Drake, and logged two more kill attempts as well, before finally forcing an error from Spartans libero Jillian Urrea to advance the score 21-20.

As difficult a loss as this was for the Spartans, they were still competitive throughout the entire game, with 19 different lead changes and winning the second set 25-22. Drake was vital to the Spartans' comeback attempt in the second set. Her kill at 2-8 set up a 7-point run for the Spartans and her stellar play throughout the series as a whole kept them competitive the entire night.

“There were moments where we weren’t all together,” Drake said. “But every time we pulled ourselves together and put everything we had on the court.”
For the Spartans, this loss marks the end of their season and high school careers for several of the team’s seniors, which both players and coaches reflected on after the game.

“We improved game by game and did much better than last season,” Baker said. “I’m really proud of them and everything they’ve done this season.”

“It’s a bittersweet loss,” team captain Jillian Urrea said through tears. “We wish Ganado the best of luck at state, but we’re going to miss playing. It’s crazy this was our last season and even though the program is going to lose seven seniors, I know they’ll still be amazing next year.”

The seven seniors on the Spartans huddled up together after the game for what was an emotional goodbye to the sport that some had been playing for the past six years.

“We were so blessed to be able to play together all of these years, so it’s really sad to see it finally come to an end here,” senior opposite hitter Adina Kolia said.

The Ganado Hornets improve to 13-7 on the season and will advance to the next round of the 2A State Tournament. As for the Spartans, they finish the season 17-10.