Fallon’s Halle Johnson was one of three players to record a double-double when the Greenwave swept the season series from their rival on Friday to win the 3A East division.
Photo by Thomas Ranson.
A dramatic comeback against its cross-valley rival sealed the 3A East regular-season title for the Wave volleyball team.
Fallon, which ended the regular season at Dayton on Tuesday, defeated Fernley in five games — 19-25, 26-24, 23-25, 25-14 and 15-10 — on Friday in Lyon County to win the title and No. 1 seed for the 3A regional tournament. Fallon hosts the No. 4 seed, either Sparks or Hug, from the 3A West on Saturday at the Elmo Dericco Gymnasium. The match time was not available at press time.
After Saturday, the tournament moves to Truckee High School with the semifinals on Nov. 3 and championship on Nov. 4. The semifinal winners advance to the state tournament, which will be in Reno in two weeks.
The 3A East seeding was locked up last weekend when Fernley defeated Lowry to nab the final playoff spot. With Fallon being the No. 1 seed, Elko finished as the No. 2 followed by Spring Creek.
In the 3A West, Truckee won the division while South Tahoe is No. 2 and North Valleys is No. 3.
The winner of Fallon’s Saturday match will face either South Tahoe or Spring Creek. Fallon lost to South Tahoe in its only meeting and split its two matches against Spring Creek.
Winning the 3A East title didn’t come easy last week in Fernley.
The Vaqueros had a 2-1 lead before Fallon won the final two games as three players recorded double-doubles.
Senior Kiley Wallace recorded 12 kills and a team-high 20 digs, junior Vernita Fillmore dished out 24 assists and had 14 digs, and junior Halle Johnson finished with 20 assists and 10 digs.
Senior Reece Hutchings led the team in kills with 19 and had a .365 attack percentage while Fillmore led the team in aces with three and Wallace and Johnson each added two. Senior Kaitlynn Hoffman led the team with three blocks and Hutchings had two. Senior Bailey Stritenberger also had 13 digs as Fallon totaled 81 digs.