Coronado girls volleyball advances to 5A state tournament — PHOTOS
Coronado’s girls volleyball team didn’t capitalize until its fifth opportunity to win the second set Thursday night against Centennial.
After the break, the Cougars made sure to have a strong start to the third set.
Coronado, the Mountain League champion and No. 1 seed, jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the third set. The Cougars finished off Centennial, the Mountain League’s No. 3 seed, to claim a 25-20, 25-23, 25-10 home win in a Class 5A Southern Region semifinal.
“We’ve worked pretty hard over these past couple of months,” Coronado coach Melody Nua said. “We’ve been in the gym grinding. To have that opportunity (to play for a state title) again, it’s awesome because that’s what we’ve been working for.”
Coronado (29-4) will host Desert League champion Bishop Gorman — a 25-14, 25-10, 25-20 winner over No. 2M Arbor View in the other semifinal — at 1 p.m. Saturday for the region title.
Coronado and Gorman both advance to next week’s state tournament in Reno. The Gaels defeated the Cougars twice in the postseason last year to claim the region and state titles.
“This has been their goal from the start, so I’m really fortunate to see them through it,” Nua said. “Now, it’s handing it off to them to go finish the rest of the way. We’ve worked really hard and it’s nice to see it coming through.”
UNLV commit Julie Beckham led Coronado with 13 kills and added four aces. Rachel Purser recorded eight kills and four aces, while Gentry Oblad had nine kills for the Cougars.
“The communication was loud,” Beckham said. “We were scrambling for every play. None of us wanted to lose and we were all fighting to win. It was just great teamwork being shown.”
Coronado took advantage of a pair of Centennial (25-14) errors to get some breathing room in the first set and went on to win. The Cougars ultimately took the second set on a service error.
It was all Coronado in the third set. The Cougars had a trio of aces to build their early lead. Beckham, Oblad and Purser helped lead the Cougars front line and kept attacking.
“We just had to put our foot on the gas pedal,” Beckham said. “We knew (Centennial) was going to come back hard and we had to push as hard as we could. It was huge. It took a lot of pressure off us.”
No. 1D Bishop Gorman 3, No. 2M Arbor View 0: At Gorman, Ayanna Watson recorded 23 kills and Trinity Thompson added 45 assists to lead the Gaels (26-8) past the Aggies (28-11).
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.