Shirell Washington is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Deer Valley High School for AZPreps365.com

The Deer Valley girls volleyball team soared to a sensational victory in their final home game, sweeping all three sets against the Peoria Panthers on Wednesday night, 25-21, 25-18, 25-21. 

For the Skyhawks, this win could give them a shot at going to the playoffs. 

“There might be a chance because this is a big win,” Deer Valley Coach Jackie Wallace said. “We had just moved up four spots, maybe we’ll move up another four to five spots would be great.”

Deer Valley will find out if the team makes the playoffs at noon on Thursday after the rankings have been updated.

Arizona Interscholastic Association 4A Conference play-In is set for Tuesday at 6 p.m. and 4A State Championships are scheduled to begin Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. 

Wednesday’s first set kicked off with a tight battle between the Skyhawks (6-11,5-4) and Panthers (8-9, 5-5). Both teams were not letting the other get too far ahead. Points were being traded back and forth, until Wallace, called a timeout with the teams tied 12-12. Back on the court, the Skyhawks gave up one point, trailing by one, 12-13, but a momentum shift allowed for the Skyhawks to go on a 10-4 run to push ahead, 22-17. 

Peoria tried to close the gap, going on a 3-0 run, making it 20-22, but a ball out of bounds from the Panthers led to a 3-1 run for the Skyhawks who won the first set 25-21.

Wallace knows her team and what kind of players they can be and she said that in this match both teams had their fair share of errors, but offensively the Skyhawks held their own. 

“They (Peoria) missed a lot of serves,” Wallace said. “We (Deer Valley) missed our share as well, but when it came down to it, I felt like we put the ball away more than them offensively.”

For Peoria, this was a new lineup of players. The team had a lot of players out for this game and Coach Sedona Merrifield had to put together a brand new team on the court for this match. 

“There wasn’t a ton of energy on the court and a lot of lack of communication,” Merrifield said. “We had a lot of players out today, unfortunately, so we had to run a brand new lineup, which we never run before.”

Much like the first set, the second set was close in the beginning. Deer Valley went on a 5-2 run, leading 7-3 with an ace from junior middle blocker Lilah Clark, a kill from sophomore outside hitter Izzy Darnell and a kill from senior opposite hitter and setter Natalie Vasquez. However, the Panthers responded with a 5-1 run to tie the set at 8-8 with a kill from junior outside hitter Jayden Kociemba.

In the second set, the Skyhawks put together an 8-5 run to take a 16-13 lead.  The Skyhawks held on to the lead for the remainder of the set going on a 9-4 run that included a kill from Darnell and sophomore outside hitter Jaida Teraji as well as a block from Vasquez to win the set 25-18.

Vasquez, Deer Valley’s only senior this year, said the team did well communicating on the court and playing smart. 

“Talking is key. Without talking you’re not going to win the game,” Vasquez said. “We just overtalk, like annoyingly. If we’re not screaming then we're not going to win.”

In the third set,  Deer Valley used a 4-0 run to take a 19-13 lead. The teams continued the set trading one to two points back and forth, but five kills from the Skyhawks and a couple of errors from the Panthers closed out the match with the Skyhawks winning 25-21.  

It was a tough loss for the Panthers, but Merrifield admired how the team did not give up and played through the challenges.

“This is a lineup we’ve never run before,” Merrifield said. “With players playing different positions they never played before. They fought pretty hard and that’s all I could ever ask for.”