DIXON — Only a few points separated the Rochelle Lady Hubs and the Dixon Duchesses as players on both teams fought to keep their respective seasons alive during the third set of their IHSA 3A Regional Quarterfinal varsity volleyball match at Dixon High School on Monday night.

Juniors Audyn Kemp and Emori Mickley delivered key plays for the Lady Hubs down the stretch, with Kemp putting away multiple kills from the middle and Mickley earning one of her team-high three aces to help Rochelle tie the score at 21-21 during the third set. With both teams out of timeouts, whichever team could make one final run would advance to the semifinal round.

It was the Duchesses who ultimately pulled through, ending the match on a 4-2 run and sealing the victory with a kill from Madyson Tichler, who soared over the middle of the net to clinch Dixon’s win and hand the Lady Hubs a 20-25, 25-21, 23-25 defeat. It was the second three-set match of the season between the Duchesses and the Lady Hubs (10-22-1, 0-10 Interstate 8), who conceded a close loss to Dixon on their home floor near the beginning of the season.

“This was exactly the kind of match I thought it would be,” head coach Molly Sly said. “I thought it would be three close sets and I always believe that we’ll win. I think extremely highly of the players on our team and I watch them put in the work every single day. They’re always fighting to become better players and they’re always looking for ways to help their teammates.”

A slow start hurt the eighth-seeded Lady Hubs in the first set, where the seventh-seeded Duchesses (21-14, 6-2 BNC) broke off an 8-2 run to start the match and led by as many as nine points midway through the set. Rochelle fought back to bring Dixon within three points, though, as senior Taelynn Rodeghero sparked the offense with a pair of aces as well as a flurry of kill shots from the outside. A big block from junior Kyrie Cragin made the score 22-19 in favor of the Duchesses, who took advantage of a Rochelle hitting error to seal their first-set victory.

“It took a little while for our setters to settle in and get balls to our hitters consistently, but once they settled in and found their groove, we never stopped,” Sly said. “Taelynn and Audyn really lit it up in the front row and I’m very proud of how they played in their last match of the season. I thought that Jaydin [Dickey] and Meredith [Bruns] put a lot of good balls out there.”

Despite losing the opening set, the Lady Hubs carried their newfound momentum into the second set, where the combination of consistent serve placement and improved passing allowed Rochelle to pressure Dixon’s back-row defense, which led to receiving errors and miscues by the Duchesses. The Lady Hubs built a 15-8 lead and maintained their seven-point advantage after a tough dig by junior Jaydin Dickey sparked a brief 3-0 rally from Rochelle.

Sophomore Briel Metzger delivered the final point of the set for the Lady Hubs, scoring on a kill from the outside to send the match into a third and final set with a ticket to the regional semifinal match against top seed LaSalle-Peru on the line. While Dixon took the early lead in the third set, Rochelle kept a roughly even pace with the Duchesses, not allowing them to build an advantage larger than three points. Rochelle burned its first timeout trailing 16-13, but big plays from Kemp in the middle and Mickley behind the service line led to a 20-19 score and a timeout by Dixon.

The back-and-forth battle continued over the final moments of the third set, as both teams exchanged timeouts after a few quick points before Dixon’s 4-2 run down the stretch enabled the Duchesses to clinch the quarterfinal victory. Junior Meredith Bruns collected 11 assists and 11 digs to earn a double-double, while senior Dempsey Atkinson recorded a team-high 17 digs to anchor the back-row defense. Kemp, Rodeghero, Dickey and Bruns each had five kills.

“We don’t have to wait until the last match of the season to turn it on,” Sly said. “We can turn it on during spring open gyms, our summer league and our first match in the fall… We didn’t click the way I wanted us to early in the season and I thought the girls saw tonight how fun it is when we’re clicking and playing for each other. Hopefully our returning players bring that next year.”