DON McDERMOTT / PVT Pahrump Valley High School’s No. 4-seeded girls' volleyball team won the Southern Nevada Class 3-A Regionals Friday at Boulder City, stunning No. 1 Las Vegas Faith Lutheran and No. 2 Overton Moapa Valley to earn a trip to the state semifinals, to be played Friday at Silverado High School in Las Vegas. Advertisement

For a total of three hours and 57 minutes, through 381 diving, jumping, leaping points and who knows how many thrills and spills, Pahrump Valley battled its way to stunning success in the Southern Nevada Class 3-A Regional Volleyball championships Friday.

Now, coach Amy Hart's team gets to do it all over again.

The PVHS girls will play North No. 2 seed and defending champion Yerington at 8:40 p.m., Friday in a semifinal match at the Nevada 3-A State tournament at Silverado High School in Las Vegas.

The No. 4 seeded Trojans, who had to win at least two of their final three league matches to qualify for the playoffs, defeated unbeaten regular-season champion and No. 1 seeded Las Vegas Faith Lutheran 7-25, 27-25, 19-25, 25-23, 15-12 in the first round.

The match took two hours and 10 minutes to complete, after the Crusaders needed just 14 minutes to win the first game.

"After we lost that first game 25-7, I told the girls at the break just to relax, that they had nothing to lose ... just go out and play their game as best they could," said Hart, in her first season as the Trojans' coach.

"The comeback," said Hart, smiling, "was exciting. The girls were playing to win; they weren't playing to lose by being too careful."

Faith Lutheran, said Hart, "is a good club. But we were able to take control. Moapa Valley is a scrappy team, and it felt good to win that match as well."

The Trojans won the fifth and deciding game, breaking a 12-12 tie on a kill by junior middle hitter Kristi Daffer. A Faith Lutheran kill, after Brittney Lindgren served, sailed out of bounds and another Daffer kill ended the grueling, exciting game and match.

In the regional championship match, Overton Moapa Valley, which had dispatched homestanding Boulder City 25-19, 25-18, 25-19 with relative ease and had beaten Pahrump Valley 3-2 twice during the regular season, was the opposition.

Pahrump Valley, with just 65 minutes rest, dominated the Pirates in the first game, winning 25-16. The Matt Messer-coached Pirates rebounded with a 25-22 win in Game Two, after trailing 22-21.

The Trojans led 7-2, but trailed 23-20 in Game Three. On Lindgren's serve, Pahrump Valley outpointed the Pirates 5-0 to win. Lindgren got an ace, Daffer had two kills, and a Pirate unforced error with the game at stake ended it.

In the fourth game, Pahrump Valley scored 10 of the first 15 points before Messer called a time out. It did little to stop the Trojans, who held advantages of 17-8, 19-11 and 23-17 before ending the match -- and securing their first regional title since 2004 -- by using two more Pirate misplays to triumph and set off a wild celebration among the PV girls and the relatively few fans who ventured to Boulder City to watch.

"We went to San Diego for a tournament, did well there, and came back to Pahrump with a new dynamic," said Hart. "We bonded as a team; the chemistry was there, so we started to come together as a team."

NOTES -- Before the regionals began, Pahrump Valley were 1-9 over a run of 10 matches, before beating Mesquite Virgin Valley and Boulder City to earn the playoff berth ... During the regular season, Kristi Daffer, a junior middle hitter, had 228 kills, 189 dinks, 117 blocks and was 333-for-362 on serves, to go with 62 digs ... Brittney Lindgren, the Trojans' senior libero, was 260-for-282 serving and received 433 of 536 serves ... Arlette Scott had 370 assists to kills and was 461 for 481 serving ... The team was 1,917 for 2,072 serving, as well as totaling 449 kills, 277 dinks, and 217 blocks.