LUVERNE -- Murray County Central is hoping for a little revenge.
Seeded No. 3 in the Section 3A South tournament, the Rebels were able to advance to the third round with a sweep of Fulda -- setting up another match with conference rival Southwest Christian.
"It was one of the two regular season matches that we lost," MCC head coach Donna Johansen said. "We lost to Minneota right away and then to Southwest Christian. Otherwise, the other ones were tournaments, which you don't play three out of five."
SWC defeated MCC 3-1 early in October.
"I think the first time we played it was a close match all the way and it could have gone either way," Johansen said. "Things seemed to go their way more than ours."
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Playing immediately after SWC defeated Westbrook-Walnut Grove, Murray County Central had its hands full with a pesky Fulda team.
It wasn't always pretty for the Rebels in their 25-20, 25-15, 25-23 victory Friday night.
A tip from Sheyenne Wildfeuer (10 kills, 12 digs) gave Fulda and early 2-1 lead.
However, a 5-1 run gave MCC back the lead -- forcing a Fulda timeout.
From there, the Rebels opened up a 14-10 lead before a missed serve cut the lead to three points.
"We had four missed serves in the first game and the last time we played them we only had three missed serves in the whole match," Johansen explained.
A kill from Emily Bose (10 kills, five ace tips, four ace blocks, 12-for-13 serving, three aces) gave the Rebels a 16-12 lead midway through the match.
The Raiders were never able to recover as a tip from Bose sealed a 25-20 victory in Game 1.
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Kills from Wildfeuer and Amy Paulzine gave the Raiders a 6-4 lead early in Game 2, but the lead did not last long.
From there, the Rebels went on a 6-2 run to take a 10-8 lead.
"We did some good things tonight," Johansen said. "We came from behind in the second and third games. We've been able to do that: it's not the first time. We didn't get flustered or anything like that."
With the score tied at 10-all, Colleen Everson (17-for-18 serving, four aces, three kills, 12 digs) had a kill, but Fulda's Brittany Hulstein answered with a kill of her own to keep the game tied at 11 apiece.
One of Mari Holinka's nine kills on the night gave the Raiders 12 points to match the Rebels score, but MCC responded with an 11-2 run to take control of Game 2 in a 25-15 victory.
A hitting error from the Rebels tied the score at 14-all in the third game, but three consecutive errors from the Raiders sparked a 6-0 MCC run.
The Rebels opened up as much as a five-point lead (21-16) in the later parts of the game, but the Raiders were able to cut the deficit to one point, 23-22, late in the game.
However, it was the Rebels who were able to score two of the final three points to secure the 25-23 victory -- sending them to the semifinals Tuesday night.
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Alyssa Schmidt had 31 set assists, four ace blocks and nine digs for MCC, while Stepanie Ahlschlager had 23 digs to lead the defensive effort.
For the Raiders, Michelle Goedtke had 12 set assists, while Courtney Hulstein had nine set assists and was 16-for-16 serving with 10 points and two aces.
