The Centennial Coyotes advanced to the 5A Conference state championship match after defeating the Ironwood Ridge Nighthawks in Tuesday's state semifinals.

Centennial, the No. 1 seed, walked away with a 25-22, 25-16, 22-25, 25-18 victory over the No. 4 seed at Marcos de Niza.

Centennial senior Reagan Leonard set the tone early when she opened Game 1 with three strong serves. The Coyotes had numerous hitting errors in the first two sets, but it didn’t stop them from taking a 2-0 game lead over the Nighthawks.

In the third set, as Centennial gained a lead over Ironwood Ridge, Centennial’s serve-receive started to falter.

After a timeout called by Centennial head coach Cari Bauer at 19-16, Ironwood Ridge players, including Jaclyn Inclan, picked up their serving, allowing the Nighthawks to beat Centennial 25-22.

Both teams went all out to secure a victory and advance to Wednesday’s championship match, including Centennial captain Reagan Leonard, who dove for every ball, and fellow senior captain Kara Spicer, who got her hands on every set in Game 4.

The fourth set wasn’t an easy one for either team, though. The game was tied in the early going until passing errors by Ironwood Ridge put Centennial in the lead.

Although Ironwood Ridge didn’t walk away with the result it wanted, its coach was satisfied.

“I’m proud of everything this team has gone through,” coach Bill Lang said. “I would rather lose the semifinals with this team than win the finals with a different team.”  

Centennial (27-9) will play Sunnyslope in the championship on Wednesday at Mesquite High School at 5:15 p.m.

Regardless of the victory and the team’s No. 1 seeding, Bauer said her team’s biggest focus for the championship match against Sunnyslope is having a solid defense. Sunnslope and Centennial split their two, two-game regular season tournament matches this season.

“Our style is to win with defense,” Bauer said. “We have to not let the ball hit the floor like we did in the three sets we were successful in (against Ironwood Ridge).”