CALIFORNIA - The Blair Oaks Lady Falcons had one great comeback in them Wednesday night. There was just too much for them to overcome to get a second rally.
Blair Oaks, the No. 1 seed in Class 3 District 10, couldn't overcome early struggles against the second-seeded California Lady Pintos, who won 25-22, 25-23 in the championship match.
It's the ninth consecutive district runner-up finish for Blair Oaks, which had lost its previous five district title matches to Helias.
"California is solid, and they have the advantage (of being) at home," Blair Oaks coach McKenzie Bennett said. "They definitely took the advantage, and they just played better than we did tonight.
"They hit a little bit better, they blocked a little bit better. They just did a really good job tonight."
The win snapped California's streak of 11 straight losses to Blair Oaks. Earlier this season, Blair Oaks won 25-23, 25-20 on Sept. 19 in the conference matchup, then won 25-22, 21-25, 25-12 on Oct. 19 in the semifinals of the Versailles Tournament.
"Any win that gets you (a district title) is exciting, but it was more special because it was Blair Oaks," said California coach Julie Bailey, who guided the Lady Pintos to their third district championship in four seasons. "I don't know, it's pretty special no matter what. It's just good to be home and do it."
California had control of the opening set from the early going. After a Blair Oaks error gave California a 5-4 lead, Ella Lewis had a kill and a block, then Emma Whitson followed with a kill to put the Lady Pintos ahead 8-4.
A kill by Blair Oaks' Emma Schroeder closed the gap to 11-10, but California took nine of the next 11 points to build a comfortable 20-12 lead.
"I was really disappointed with our passing, but Lauren Friedrich, our freshman outside hitter, and Makayla Schanzmeyer, our other outside hitter, they just came to play today," Bailey said. "They made quite a difference in that first set. Every time they got the ball, they put it away."
Paige Lamm also had three kills during that 9-2 run for California.
Blair Oaks fought back and closed the gap to 24-22 with back-to-back kills by Mariah Radmacher and Schroeder, but Schanzmeyer finished the set off for the Lady Pintos with a kill on the next point.
The Lady Falcons were starting to overcome an early three-point deficit in the second set when they suffered a devastating loss. Junior outside hitter Elsie Villmer recorded a kill from the left side, but she landed awkwardly and fell to the court, clutching her left knee.
Villmer, who had six kills at that point and is second on the team this season in kills, was helped to the Blair Oaks bench and did not return. She was helped to a wheelchair following the match.
"That's rough," Bennett said. "I'm not somebody that gets super-emotional with this stuff, but it's a rough way to end the season."
Payton Mitchell entered the match in Villmer's spot in the rotation, finishing with a pair of kills and two service points.
"They came back strong," Bennett said. "We put Payton Mitchell on the court, and we didn't anticipate that she would see the court. She did a really good job for never having played varsity this year.
"They rose to the occasion, they kept it super close."
Mitchell's second kill gave Blair Oaks its first lead of the second set at 16-15, but California answered with three straight points, getting a kill from Whitson and a service ace from Lamm.
The seesaw battle continued, as Radmacher had three kills during a five-point stretch to put Blair Oaks back on top 23-22, leading to a California timeout.
"We needed to hit the ball," Bailey said. "We got to where we were junking a lot of stuff over. We needed to hit, we needed to play aggressive."
Blair Oaks made errors on each of the next three points to clinch a two-set victory for California.
Lamm led California with nine kills, while Schanzmeyer finished with four kills.
Radmacher posted 10 kills and finished the season with 360 kills, breaking the Blair Oaks single-season record of 260 set by Allison Maxwell in 2016. Madison Mitchell added 25 assists to give her 763 for the season, which is also a school record.
Tori Martin added five digs - finishing the season with 316, another school record - and Alyssa Hargus posted three blocks for Blair Oaks, which finished the season with a 30-5 record for its fourth 30-win season in the past five years.
"There were definitely some highlights to this season, for sure," Bennett said. "They played well, 30 wins is a lot of wins. That's a good job. A lot of teams can't say they've won 30 games."
California (26-6-3) will host sectionals and quarterfinals Saturday. The Lady Pintos will face Logan-Rogersville (31-4), the defending Class 3 state champion, in the sectional round.
The other sectional matchup will be between Reeds Spring (19-10-3) and the District 9 champion.
In Wednesday's first semifinal, Blair Oaks survived a scare against fourth-seeded Eldon, rallying for a 20-25, 25-12, 29-27 win.
Eldon, down 21-24 in the third set, fought off three straight match points to tie it at 24. Blair Oaks then fought off three match points (trailing 24-25, 25-26 and 26-27) before Radmacher finished off the match with a kill.
"Some of it was we got a little bit lucky, and we were playing a little better than we were in the entire match," Bennett said of the third set.
Radmacher finished with a season-high 23 kills and Mitchell added a season-high 37 assists in the win.
Caroline Beckmann led Eldon (17-14-1) with 20 kills, giving the sophomore 352 kills for the season.
In the second semifinal, California defeated third-seeded Southern Boone 25-20, 25-18. Lamm led the Lady Pintos with five kills, while Schanzmeyer and Lewis each had four kills.
Wednesday's semifinal action was represented solely by teams from the the Tri-County Conference.
"I said no matter what, we've got four teams in this district (semifinals) from our conference, which shows how strong our conference is," Bailey said. "For all of us, that makes us a better team, and when we get to this point, we're more ready than (other teams)."