ON THE COURT — Indian Creek’s Camryn Ketron plays the ball during Monday’s East District Division II sectional contest at St. Clairsville. - Seth Staskey

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — It was just two weeks ago that Indian Creek and St. Clairsville met on John Jenkins Court at St. Clairsville High School with the Redskins rallying for a five-set victory.

Monday evening they met in an opening-round, Division II sectional volleyball game.

The only difference this time around was the increased stakes.

Indian Creek used a strong fourth set and carried the momentum to a 15-8, fifth-set win to earn the right to face Beaver Local Wednesday evening at 6 ip.m. n a sectional co-final at River View High School in Warsaw.

All told, the Redskins (9-12) won the match by scores of 20-25, 25-20, 20-25, 25-17 and then the aforementioned decisive score.

“We knew coming down here what we were getting into,” Indian Creek head coach Crystal Hammack said. “We’re moving in the right direction, we’re progressing and our kids have worked really, really hard.”

The hard work paid dividends. Similar to the prior meeting, the Red Devils got out of the gate quickly in the first set. However, the teams were simply too evenly matched for anyone to go quietly.

“We have nothing to be ashamed of because we played extremely well,” first-year St. Clairsville head coach David Williamson said. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs this season. I am disappointed we lost and not happy with the result, but we have nothing to hang our heads about.”

The Red Devils put themselves in position to win the match by taking the third set, but the Redskins found some momentum as they took advantage of some Red Devil errors and on their own side of the net they did a solid job of getting their hitters in position to take big swings.

“In the fourth and fifth, we focused more on what we could control on our side of the net,” Hammack said. “We can only control what each of us can do and nothing on their side of the net, so we just focused on playing the best we could.”

In the fifth, the Redskins jumped out to a 4-0 lead, which eventually swelled to 8-2. St. Clairsville was never able to put together any extended scoring run in the final set, sending the Redskins to the next round.

Fueling the Indian Creek attack were Tori Robertson, who had 21 kills, three blocks, 26 digs and three aces. Allison McGraw posted 15 digs. Camryn Ketron notched three aces, six kills and 21 digs.

Reese Scott was charted for 40 assists, 13 digs and an ace. Kylie Anderson was credited with 10 kills, 21 digs, three aces and two blocks.

The Red Devils, meanwhile, received 11 kills from both Brooke Biancarelli and Ella Carpenter.

Biancarelli also had 12 digs and four aces. Rachel Finnical handed out 33 assists and had seven digs. Jenna Gorza was charted for eight digs. Katlyn Gray recorded seven blocks and a like number of digs. Abby Salisbury had 21 digs.