VOLLEYBALL: Du Quoin finally gets past Sesser-Valier

Finally breaking through against the team that had knocked them out of the postseason the past two years, Du Quoin claimed a straight-set win over Sesser-Valier on Monday at the Johnston City Regional, 25-19, 25-23. The Lady Indians will play again on Tuesday, taking on No. 2 seed Carmi-White County at 6 p.m.

"The first words out of my mouth to the girls were 'thank you for getting that monkey off our back," said DHS head coach Jo Dill. "It was very nice to get that win and move on to the next game. Sesser has really good defense and passing. Our girls were hitting and hitting, serving, and they were getting it up. We were having errors because we didn't get it down. I think it just took us a while to settle in and play our game."

The Lady Indians had to come from behind in both sets. Sesser-Valier built a 7-2 lead in the first before Du Quoin tied it up at 12-12 and took control.

"We just had some uncharacteristic errors for us, and adjusting to the fact that they have a different defense than we're used to seeing. They weren't giving up tips or anything unless it was a hard hit ball, so we had to adapt and start swinging. We finally got in a groove and took some down."

The Lady Red Devils led 21-14 in set two until the Lady Indians rattled off a 6-0 run to close within a point and in total scored 11 of the last 13 points of the match to advance.

Kenzie Jackson's 9 kills led Du Quoin's offense, Jordyn Bullar had 5, Alexis O'Keefe had 4. Katie Smith led digs with 9, Bullar added 7. Alaina Caldwell had a team-high 17 assists and shared the team lead in services aces with Afton Robinson (3).