Prep Volleyball: Harrisburg hammers victory over Carbondale, headed to regional final

The Harrisburg Bulldogs were looking to dish out a little payback to the Carbondale Terriers for a loss earlier in their season. At the Benton Regional, they were given that opportunity and the Bulldogs put away their opponents in two sets (25-21, 25-19) to advance to the IHSA 3A Regional Championship game.

That game is to take place on Thursday night at Benton where the Bulldogs will take on the Red Devils of Murphysboro.

"I think we did well," said Heather Cox, Harrisburg coach. "There's always room for improvement, but we did what we needed to do. We lost to Carbondale earlier in the year so we wanted to give them a little payback."

In both sets against the Terriers, the Bulldogs went down early, but came back to take the lead just as quickly. Led by Jessica Schwartz, the Bulldogs yanked away the lead from their opponents and opened their scoring in the first set with a 6-point run.

The Terriers tried to catch up by shutting down the Bulldogs' two power-hitters, Matty Hawkins and Bryleigh Buchanan, but that just made space for other Bulldogs to shine. Karsyn Davis was the Bulldog to turn to during the match; she filled in the space for her team when the Terriers tried to clog up the middle of the court.

"Karsyn has done a fantastic job all year," Cox said. "She is our go-to girl... if someone is not doing well, we know we can throw it over to 24 and she can do something with it."

Once the Bulldogs took the lead and made a wide enough gap, they maintained the lead until they walked away with a victory in the fist set, 25-21.

In the second set, the Terriers opened the scoring, but the Bulldogs took the lead and once again, never gave it back. With Devin Butler at the serving line, the Bulldogs created a 5-point gap (9-4) and their opponents were only ever able to come within two points of their lead.

However, when the Bulldogs found themselves up by 10 points (24-14) and ready to finish the match, the Terriers found a little bit of life and went on a 5-point rally making the score 24-19.

One final kill from Hawkins sealed the deal for the Bulldogs who are eager to move on to the final match.

The championship game will take place at 6 p.m. on Thursday against Murphysboro at Benton high school.