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4A Sunrise: Coronado, Silverado to meet for region championship

Coronado senior Madison Karcich doesn’t like coming off the court during volleyball matches. But even she won’t argue with Cougars coach Matt Johnson for pulling her at the back row in recent weeks because of serving woes.

“Too much thinking,” Karcich said. “Normally, if I go back and think about it, I’ll mess up or do something stupid.”

The 6-foot outside hitter could do no wrong Thursday night and was back to being a six-rotation player in a 25-18, 25-20, 25-20 win over visiting Foothill in a Class 4A Sunrise Region semifinal.

Karcich finished with seven aces, seven kills and 14 digs for Coronado (26-9), which faces Silverado (23-15) in the region final at 7 p.m. Friday at Durango.

“Maddie’s a senior and doesn’t want to come off the floor,” Johnson said. “She was like, ‘That’s my position. I’m the captain.’ She earned the right to stay out there for all six rotations today.”

Karcich served eight straight points in the first set, including four aces, to help Coronado seize momentum and a 23-9 lead. She finished with seven of the Cougars’ 11 aces in the match.

“I’m just trying to get back in the groove of keeping (my serves) in until state,” Karcich said, smiling. “It felt really good. I was excited about it.”

Karcich added four kills and two aces in the second set. With the score tied at 14, the Cougars went on a 6-1 run to pull away. Coronado overcame nine ties, and grabbed a two-set advantage thanks to its skyscraping middle of Sasha Bolla and Ashlynn Ammerman.

“Everything for us kind of stems off them,” Johnson said. “If we pass well, they’re good enough where they can make the opposing blockers have to think and guess.”

In the third set, Coronado took an 18-8 lead and won the match on a Dallas Balanay-Flores-to-Karcich set.

Bolla had eight kills, three blocks for Coronado, which also got contributions from Shannon Evans (10 kills, three blocks), Morenike Ajayi (eight kills) and Cassandra Smits-Van Oyen (22 assists).

Whitley Brow led Foothill with five kills, 13 digs and three aces. Riana Blount added seven kills, and Laynee Truscott had 13 assists and five digs for the Falcons (19-16).

Silverado 3, Green Valley 0 — At Coronado, the Skyhawks dominated all facets of the game en route to a 25-12, 25-12, 25-15 victory over the Gators in the other Sunrise Region semifinal.

“Green Valley is always so well-coached and they play the game the right way,” Silverado coach Eric Drum said. “So we really had to be at the top of our game to have those kind of scores.”

Sydney Berenyi, the reigning Gatorade Player of the Year, led the way with 28 kills, three aces and 12 digs.

“I’m the luckiest coach in the valley,” Drum said of having Berenyi. “She’s a machine. She’s been doing this for a very long time. She’s a veteran and she just continues to get better.”

Brielen Aquino added 34 assists and four aces, and Catherine Coty had seven kills for Silverado.

Abby Olsen led Green Valley with 10 assists. Lana Benson had four kills, and Kristine Davis had 10 digs for the Gators (14-17).

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