LINCOLN, Neb. - The Falls City Sacred Heart fans were loud and, on their feet early on in Thursday's quarterfinal matchup with Humphrey St. Francis at Pinnacle Bank Arena in the opening round of the state volleyball tournament. 

The students sported a beach theme for the rematch of last year's state championship match, wearing flowery shirts and leis, but the match would turn out to be anything but a breeze.

The defending D2 champs got out to an 8-1 lead in the opening set to force a timeout from the Flyers, but from that point the jubilation would fade as the rematch would flip the result with St. Francis battling back to take the opening set.

St. Francis (26-4) would then claim the next two sets, too, to earn the sweep, 25-22, 25-23, 25-20.

After giving up the 8-1 lead the Irish stayed close for the duration of the set, trailing 19-17 before taking a timeout. But the Flyers responded to pull out to a 22-21 lead before ultimately taking the set 25-22. 

In the second set it was more even play, as each team executed their attacks well. It was a 7-7 tie to start before St. Francis' Kylee Wessel began to heat up. She attacked the Irish block from all over the court and took over the second set.

With the set then tied at 23, FCSH (25-9) committed a service error and then senior Tessa Deets closed out the set with a kill as St. Francis built a 2-0 lead in the match. 

Sacred Heart players await the start of the second set at the state tournament.
Sacred Heart players await the start of the second set at the state tournament.  

The final set wasn't as close with the Irish being forced to use all of their timeouts early as Wessel and Deets continued to deliver swing after swing.

Kills from Makinley Scholl and Olivia Eickhoff pulled FCSH closer, but in the end, Wessel was too much to handle as she finished with 21 kills unofficially to lead all players in the sweep.

St. Francis--which is the third seed--will take on second seeded Overton in the semifinals. Eickhoff finished with 8 kills unofficially while Scholl had a team-high 11 for Sacred Heart. 

Box Score:

No. 6 Falls City Sacred Heart (25-9): 22, 23, 20 - 0

No. 3 Humphrey St. Francis (26-4): 25, 25, 25 - 3