Northwest Christian (16-1) won their final game of the regular season by sweeping Kingman Academy (14-3) at home.

The Crusaders were clicking as a team from the start as they took the first three sets 25-13; 25-16; 25-4 from the Tigers to go into the playoffs on top of the 3A West division standings.

NCS took an early 12-4 lead going into a Kingman Academy timeout during the first set.

Sophomore Molly Kipp helped them take control early with their team capitalizing on four of her first five serves of the game.

Kipp said her approach in being the first to serve and get her team going is to just do the best she can to help out her team.

“Just kind of thinking... well not thinking about much actually,” she said. “If you think too much it does not go as planned but just focusing on what you are doing helps a lot.”

Kipp added that it boosts the teams play to be successful serving the ball.

“It is pretty important because if you don’t get your serve it gets off to a lull,” she said. “If you do get it, it hypes your team up.”

The start of the second set was a back and forth battle between both teams until NCS started to pull away.

Kipp said communication and working as a team is key when you are trying to pull away during close sets.

"You just have to make sure you are talking and if you are not communicating with your teammates it can just all go downhill from there,” Kipp said.

Head coach Jenna Hope said tonight’s approach was a little different than previous games. Their final game was to prepare them for a big playoff run.

“We went into this game getting ready for state like what different strategies we might need in state, even if we did not need them for this game,” she said. “We mix them up and put people in different spots and just have different strategies.”

The fast start has been adopted as a play style throughout the regular season but going into playoffs, they want every game to start off like that.

“We normally do well getting off to a fast start but our goal now is to keep that from all games,” Hope said. “So we get really excited and get really into and then you get lulled down and our goal is to stay high energy for how many ever games we need to win.”

Hope said she is working on her team gaining a comfortable approach on the court as the playoffs start.

“I am trying to teach the girls to have that relaxed demeanor when we are playing more difficult teams,” she said. “Obviously they are more comfortable in a team that is not quite as strong but we are trying to get that against strong teams and just play our game and not worry about it.”

Kingman Academy’s head coach Bill McCord said his team has played tough opponents all season but there is no team like NCS.

“We have not seen a team like this before,” he said. “It is good to play a tough team like this before the playoffs but they have just been dominant all season.”

Both the Tigers and Crusaders will see playoff games and are both fine-tuning their game and capitalizing on the rest.

“We have things to work on and fine tune before next week, he said. “We also have small injuries that the rest will help get them ready for the playoffs.

Although both teams do not know their playoff opponent just yet, Kingman Academy will start the playoffs next Tuesday while the Crusaders can rest until Friday.