Photo by Emily Daniels Members of the Tracy-Milroy-Balaton volleyball team celebrate after scoring a point during their Section 3A Tournament match against Adrian on Friday. The Panthers defeated the Dragons 3-0 to advance to the next round of the tournament.

TRACY – The No. 1 South seed in the Section 3A volleyball tournament Tracy-Milroy-Balaton High School Panthers, took on the No. 8 South seed Adrian High School Dragons, in a quick three set match last night at Tracy High School. The Panthers took advantage of being on their home court, sweeping the Dragons, 25-7, 25-10, 25-8. Head coach Rick Haberman saw a lot of excitement and energy from the girls last night being able to play a round of the tournament on their home court.

“The girls were excited to play, we haven’t played in over a week so they were really excited to get out there and play, they were also really excited to have another home match. This is the first year they’ve done that for the quarterfinals,” said Haberman.

The Panthers and the Dragons saw the only tied score in the match at the beginning of the first set, 2-2. TMB pulled away from that tie without a problem hitting double digits quickly, 12-4. The Panthers played strong and efficient offense and defense during the set holding Adrian to under ten points. TMB saw the first win of the night in Set 1, 25-7.

Set 2 started off with a quick lead from the Panthers to set the stage, 5-0. TMB gave up a few points to the Dragons but that didn’t get the Panthers down and they continued to extend their lead to 11-4. The Panthers held their strong lead throughout the whole set rarely giving Adrian the opportunity to score. TMB saw a lot of strong hitting last night from their middle hitter Catherine Wendland, who had her best hitting game of the year, which helped the Panthers to their second set win of the night, 25-10.

TMB came into the third set with a lot of energy and were ready to dominate the court. Just like the second set, the Panthers started off the set with another early lead against the Dragons, 5-0. TMB played clean offense to gain an even bigger lead at 11-3. The Panthers never looked back after gaining the lead to quickly come out with their third set win of the night to sweep Adrian, 25-8.

Haberman has a few things he wants to clean up ball movement wise to get ready for their next game but he was happy with how balanced the girls were on offense and defense tonight.

“We want to clean up a few ball control things for our next game but they played with really good balance and having a number of girls on our team being able to get kills is good to see,” said Haberman. “It was good to the girls out there tonight being aggressive with the ball, there was some hesitation a few times but we moved our feet out there really well, it was good to see us going out there being aggressive.”

The Panthers will move up in the Section 3A tournament to play Hills-Beaver Creek High School. The Panthers next game will be held in Worthington at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

Adrian 7 10 7

TMB 25 25 25

SERVING (aces): TMB (Dolan 3, Edwards 3, Kirk 2, Lanoue 2).

KILLS: TMB (Lanoue 13, Wendland 6, Dolan 4).

DIGS: TMB (Kirk 12, Lanoue 8, Edwards 7).

ASSISTS: TMB (Smith 23).

BLOCKS: TMB (Karbo 2, Wendland 2, Smith 1, Edwards 1, Lanoue 1).