CONNEAUT, Ohio — Coming off a late-night league win on Friday where Chautauqua Christian Academy (7-2, 5-1) completed a reverse sweep at Bethel Christian School (15-25, 23-25, 25-20, 25-8, 15-12), it competed in the South Ridge Baptist Invitational volleyball tournament on Saturday.

The tournament opened with round-robin (one game) seed play between five teams to determine seeding for the afternoon double-elimination tournament. CCA came out of seed play 3-1, losing to South Ridge Baptist, which also finished 3-1. CCA took the top seed in the afternoon tournament due to the tie-breaker point differential. CCA ran up a plus-28 point differential in its four games, while SRB only accumulated a plus-2 point advantage. CCA defeated Victory Christian (25-10, 25-19) and moved on to face South Ridge, who defeated Erie Bethel in straight sets, in the winners’-bracket finals. In the winner’s bracket, CCA grinded out another win, overtaking South Ridge (26-24, 25-22).

CCA then had to wait to see who returned from the losers’ bracket to face them in the finals. South Ridge later returned to the finals by defeating Erie Bethel in two sets. This set up a finish of a long day of volleyball. Chautauqua Christian, with hopes of avenging one of their two losses on the season at the hands of South Ridge in early September, now met in the finals for a best-of-five match. Beginning at 8 p.m., 12 hours from when the first match began, you could see fatigue setting in on both teams. Chautauqua Christian grinded out a back-to-back battle, outlasting South Ridge in a two-hour five-set match (26-24, 22-25, 25-16, 20-25, 15-7).

“We expected to be in the finals, and we knew our bench was deeper than all the other teams,” Coach Scott Lynn said. “Coach Larson and I talked early on that we needed to find time to rest our big hitters and setter throughout the day. We always try hard to play all 11 players, but we had to play girls out of position to get our leaders rest throughout the day. As fatigue set in, we kept them focused on their fundamentals and they kept fighting and swinging hard all day long. These girls are good and we’re so proud of them. Led by our four seniors, many of these girls have been getting varsity playing time for three and four years. It’s awesome to see the fruit of their hard work pay off.”

So many players had a great day for the Defenders. Tournament MVP Rebekah Wilkins, a senior, had 68 kills and four aces; all-tournament selection Cierra Lynn, also a senior, collected 112 assists, six kills and 12 digs; senior Riley Pascoe contributed 15 aces, 32 kills and nine digs; sophomore Ava Willink added seven aces, 37 kills and 11 blocks; junior Haylie Ryan had four aces and 19 kills; freshman Chloe Edwards added 11 aces; and senior libero Mykala Arndt played stellar defense throughout the day

The Defenders take to the court again Thursday at CCA, competing for first place in their league as they work to avenge their only other loss on the season, taking on Crawford Christian out of Meadville, Pa.

NOTES: In their win Friday, the Defenders were led by Riley Pascoe with 11 kills, five aces; Ava Willink with 10 kills, four aces, three blocks; Rebekah Wilkins with 15 kills; and Cierra Lynn with 32 assists, four kills.