Saturday’s match was a rollercoaster of highs and lows, but ultimately led to a loss for the Blackhawks.

Topping off a wildly successful fall sports season, the Sanborn Central/Woonsocket Lady Blackhawks volleyball team exceeded the expectations of critics to bring the sixth place trophy home from the Class B State Volleyball Tournament this past weekend.
The Blackhawks went into the tournament labeled the resident underdog with eighth place seeding. The girls decided not to let that bother them, however, shrugging off the naysayers, to come within an inch of the consolation championship.
Match One:
Chester Area 3, SCW 0
Inevitably, SCW met a tough team from Chester for their first contest of the tournament, which was held this past weekend at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls. Chester Area, which went on to win first place, took an easy win in the first round, 3-0, over SCW.
Set scores for the first contest were 25-14, 25-17 and 25-18.
Myah Selland led with 12 of her team’s 23 total kills. Tayla Weber added six kills and a block. Bailey Moody had 15 of a total 20 assists and eight digs, while McKenzy Peterson had 12 digs. Maddie Vermeulen added on seven digs and Tessa Jensen had six digs and two kills.
Match Two:
SCW 3, Philip 0
The first snowstorm of the year Friday also brought on a flurry of Myah Selland in the faces of the Philip Scotties, as she put down 27 kills to haul her team to a decisive 3-0 win.
The attention-grabbing win over the fifth-seeded team had set scores of 25-15, 25-16 and 25-14.
Selland also got four blocks in the win. Weber helped out with four kills, 10 digs and an ace.
Vermeulen had three kills and four aces, along with eight digs. Moody assisted her teammates 26 times and had 10 digs. Kayla Olson had 12 digs and two assists and Peterson got 10 digs as well.
The win over the 25-7 Scotties moved Sanborn Central/Woonsocket to 16-11 and the Class B Consolation Championship Saturday morning.
The Battle for Fifth
Starting out as the eighth seed in any tournament and making it into the consolation championship is no simple feat, yet the Lady Blackhawks, with nothing to lose, left no doubt that they deserved at least a shot at fifth place.
The Hawks were matched up with 25-7, sixth seeded Platte-Geddes in the late morning battle, and weren’t about to roll over and give it away.
Still, it didn’t look good early on when the Black Panthers took a big early lead in the opening set, and it looked worse yet, when the Hawks found themselves down the first two sets.
P-G looked to run away with it, going up by as much as 11 in the first match, yet SCW fought back to tie it up at 24. The ball bounced in the Panthers’ direction as they took number one, 26-25, but it was evident that the Hawks had come to play.
The Blackhawks put their toes to the line after a rough second set loss and came back with a vengeance to win the third set, 25-21, and force the match into a fourth round.
Selland came alive in the third, pounding the Black Panthers into a 25-21 submission and forcing a fifth set.
The drama, ever-present throughout the match, multiplied in set five. Parents and fans chewed their nails as each team took turns scoring, getting ahead, then falling behind; a ping-pong between a one or two point deficit or lead.
The set ended with P-G up 22-20, the consolation championship within a fingernails reach of the Sanborn County girls.
Selland had another huge day with 34 kills, 12 digs and six blocks.
Jensen added on seven kills, while Weber had six kills, two assists, 10 digs and one each ace and block. Vermeulen had four kills, two assists, one block and 25 digs. Along with Moody’s two kills, she racked up 30 assists and 16 digs. Olson helped out with 15 digs, while Peterson had 20.
The Sanborn Central/Woonsocket girls became the second of the two fall season Blackhawk teams to earn a trip to State and ended their season, 19-12, with a sixth place trophy.