Thursday night could have been the perfect trap game for Aiken High's volleyball team.
The Hornets were back on their home floor for a third-round Class AAAA playoff game after having battled back from down two sets to none Monday to eliminate Region 4-AAAA rival Gilbert in five, expending a lot of physical and emotional energy in the process.
They could ill afford a letdown, especially against a visiting Hartsville team riding the high of beating a region rival of its own in Wilson, which won Region 3-AAAA while Hartsville was runner-up, in round two.
The only letdown Thursday was in how the Hornets played the first 20 or so points. They dominated after that, running Hartsville out of the gym in a three-set sweep that took barely more than an hour to put in the books. Up next is the Lower State championship game, scheduled for Tuesday at home against May River.
"We talked about being intentional to prevent (a letdown)," Aiken coach Jeremy Rinder said following his team's 25-19, 25-12, 25-13 win to reach the state semifinals for the fourth time in five years. "Still felt like we started a little slow, but I think some of that was sort of getting used to the pace that they were playing at. Once we figured that out and started executing at that pace when they had the ball, and then pushing our tempo as much as we could, I feel like it kind of settled in and we started to execute pretty clean."
Aiken didn't trail again after making back-to-back errors in the first set to fall behind 9-7. Kills by Abigail Tyler and Alexis Mathis tied it back up, and another Tyler kill gave the Hornets the lead for good at 11-10. Mathis had two kills and a block in a four-point span to make it 23-17, and Bella Head and Avery Abrams finished the set with back-to-back kills.
The next two sets were all Aiken, the Hornets starting each one on a 9-0 run to quickly set the tone. Tyler and Baylee Rabun kept Hartsville off balance with their serves, which was by design because of their ability to find a target and hit it. That's something the Hornets have counted on to fuel big scoring runs, and Thursday it put them in position to demoralize the Red Foxes.
"That's one of the things we've kind of adjusted over the course of the season, is how we were starting our rotation to put some of our stronger servers up there earlier," Rinder said. "I think over the last couple of matches you've seen that, Crestwood, here, to get out to those big leads and kind of have control and be able to maintain control. We did it against Gilbert, too, we just botched that one, you know what I mean?"
Caroline Smith got in on the fun at the service line with an ace to finish the second set, and then Head finished off the win with her 12th kill of the night -- also reaching 500 career kills in the process.
The Hornets' first-round sweep of Crestwood featured contributions from all 18 players on the postseason roster against an overmatched opponent, and the starters had a much heavier workload in round two to avoid elimination. Thursday was another opportunity to get some reserves onto the floor, which is a rarity this late in the postseason, because of how well the Hornets played to put it out of reach.
"We were saying earlier that teams don't just happen their way into the third round. They're here for a reason," Rinder said. "To put yourself in a position where you can get that experience is huge in terms of for your program and for growth. You never know when your number's going to get called. I think we got most people in there tonight. To give them, especially young folks, that experience in the third round of the playoffs, we think and we believe that will pay dividends both now and in the future."
Up next is May River, the Region 7-AAAA runner-up that beat South Aiken in Tuesday's second round before outlasting Bishop England in five sets Thursday, for the Lower State title. The winner will play for the Class AAAA state championship next Saturday.