It took all night, but the volleyball fans at Rackers Fieldhouse were finally treated to a competitive set in the final one of a long night in the Class 3 District 12 Tournament.
None of the four sets in Tuesday's two semifinals were particularly compelling, and the first set of the championship match wasn't, either.
But the Blair Oaks Lady Falcons forced Helias to raise its level of play in the second set, and the Lady Crusaders did just that.
Helias improved to 37-0-1 on the season and captured the district title by claiming a 25-10, 25-21 victory against Blair Oaks.
The win earned Helias a spot in Saturday's sectional/quarterfinal round at Logan-Rogersville. The Lady Crusaders will open against Aurora (23-10-1) and with a win, would play in the quarterfinals against either Logan-Rogersville (34-1) or the winner of District 11, which will be decided today.
"The girls know everybody is going to be gunning for them, but they're on a mission," Helias coach David Harris said. "They've got some goals and they want to reach them. We got a couple (Tuesday) - we went undefeated at home this year, and we broke the school record for wins, which was 36 (set in 2009).
"So we've got a couple of those goals out, but the big goals are ahead of us."
When Helias and Blair Oaks met Oct. 2 in a regular-season match at Rackers Fieldhouse, Helias rolled to a 25-7, 25-4 victory. It looked like things might be heading the same direction after Helias took the first set in easy fashion.
The Lady Crusaders were up just 12-6 before Erica Haslag took control of the match all by herself. The senior, who has verbally committed to Bradley University, had three kills and one block in a four-point span that was included in a 9-0 run for Helias.
"We set the tone really well in the first set and she was front and center in that," Harris said.
The second set was a different story, however, as it was tied 11 different times, the last one coming at 14. It seemed as if a message from their coach was finally getting through to the Lady Falcons.
"Since our last Helias match, where we pretty much just came in here and didn't play at all, our focus has been on battling for every point," Blair Oaks coach Joy Northweather said. "... I kept telling them, "If you play for every point, the points will come. If you fight for every point we can get, things will change for us and it will be a different story.'
"I just repeated that before the second set, "We can walk out of here like we did the last time, with our tails between our legs, or we can walk out of here with pride. To do the second one, we're going to have to fight.'"
The Lady Falcons got two kills and one block from Allison Maxwell during the early stages of the second set, and a kill by Paige Rackers gave them their final lead at 14-13.
That's when Helias picked up its play, first getting a sideout on a kill by Lindsey Griggs to start a 7-1 run that ended with a kill by Molly Sandbothe.
Helias never trailed after that, and Harris never had to burn a single timeout, which he seemed very reluctant to do.
"I wanted to see how the girls responded and give them a chance to work themselves out of it, and they did," he said. "There have been some games where I call a timeout and they look at me and go, "Why did you call a timeout? We didn't need that.'
"The second game was good because we faced a little adversity and we responded well to it."
Blair Oaks made one last push and closed to within 22-20 on a kill by Rebecca Schroeder. But three hitting errors by the Lady Falcons in the final four points gave the Lady Crusaders what they needed to pull out the victory.
Haslag paced Helias with nine kills, while Tory Wiley had seven and Laura Schieber had five. Ashley Dudenhoeffer handed out 22 assists and Griggs had 10 digs and three aces.
"We knew that it was going to be a tougher match this time than it was the first time because (the Lady Falcons) were going to be more determined to have a better showing, and they did," Harris said. "They have a lot of talent. It's still a little young and inexperienced, and I think our experience showed itself at the end."
Ryan Dudenhoeffer, Rackers, Maxwell and Schroeder had three kills apiece for Blair Oaks (28-8-2). Sadie Turner had nine assists and Alexa Stegemann had nine digs.
"They knew we had nothing to lose," Northweather said. "We came in as the underdog and I just wish we could have gotten a few more points.
"You always want to look to the future, and I see a bright future for us. We showed heart tonight and we showed that we do have people playing for Blair Oaks who can get the job done."
III
Helias, the top seed in the tournament, started Tuesday's action with a 25-5, 25-2 dismantling of fifth-seeded Eldon in the semifinals.
Eldon scored the match's first point, only to see Helias come roaring back with the next nine.
That wouldn't even be the Lady Crusaders' biggest run of that set. A sideout and 12 straight points on the serve of Haslag, including two aces, put Helias up 23-3.
The second set was a bigger mismatch. Helias won the first six points, gave up one, and then won four more before Eldon got its last point to make it 11-2. A sideout and 12 points on the serve of Megan Brown ended it.
Haslag led the way with four kills, two blocks and 12 service pointss. Dudenhoeffer had 15 assists and 14 service points, including four aces. Griggs had seven kills and two blocks and Maddie Dunkmann had five digs.
"The girls don't like me to say this, because they start to knock on wood and do other things, but we can't get to the Final Four unless we win our next game," Harris said. "We talked about that before Eldon and again before Blair Oaks. We can't look too far ahead.
"They're pretty focused on what they need to do to get that accomplished, so we're looking forward to some good practices this week and then will go to Rogersville and play down there."
Grace Baucom had two of the three kills in the match for Eldon (13-14-3) and Paige Benjamin had all three Eldon assists.
III
Third-seeded Blair Oaks also had an easy semifinal, rolling past second-seeded California by a 25-5, 25-17 score.
California won the first point , then lost the next 17.
In the second set, the Lady Pintos led 2-1 and trailed just 11-8 before the Lady Falcons effectively ended it with a 7-2 spurt.
"We played well against California. The girls came to play," Northweather said. "California was a couple players down and we were able to play with confidence. Any time you can go into the championship match with confidence, you're going to do better."
Maxwell had seven kills and three blocks in the win. Schroeder had two aces and Stegemann had eight digs.
Cameron Meyer had four kills for California, Madilyn Safley had four assists and Adrienne Strickfaden had three kills and one block.