MURFREESBORO – Father Ryan was forced to come from behind in Thursday’s Division II Class AA semifinal match at Siegel Middle School, rallying from a two-set deficit to capture a 3-2 victory over Briarcrest Christian School.

“We just never lost our fight,” Lady Irish senior Paige Wigington said. “We never got down. We just kept going, and I’m so proud of our team.”

With the win, Father Ryan (46-9), which defeated Baylor in Wednesday’s winners bracket finals match, secured a spot in the Division II Class AA championship match, where the Lady Irish will once again square off against the Lady Red Raiders (noon Friday at Siegel High).

After dropping the first two sets 25-22, 25-23, the Lady Irish stormed back, claiming the next two games 25-18, 25-11 to tie things, 2-2.

“They were gangbusters,” Father Ryan coach Jinx Cockerham said of Briarcrest’s early play. “They passed everything perfectly, and so they were able to get into their offense pretty easily. They covered the floor so well that we couldn’t really find any open holes, and we were just out of sync.”

“I think we finally woke up in that third set,” Wigington added. “We finally got into the game. We woke up and realized what we were actually fighting for.”

The Lady Irish jumped out to a 7-0 advantage in the decisive fifth set, but Briarcrest bounced back with seven unanswered points to knot things at 7-7. That’s when Father Ryan’s frontline really went to work, blocking almost everything that came their way to help secure the decisive set, 15-8.

“We did not block well in the first two sets,” Cockerham said. “We finally got our timing down on the blocks, and after that we got a little confidence and started playing better.”

Goodpasture 3, Trinity Christian 2: It didn’t come easily for the defending Class A state champions, but Goodpasture found a way past Trinity Christian in Thursday’s semifinal match, capturing a 3-2 victory and securing a spot in Friday’s Class A championship (2 p.m. Friday at Siegel High).

“We were here last year, but last year it wasn’t as hard to fight through,” Lady Cougars senior Kylie Scruggs said after her team’s 30-28, 23-25, 25-22, 17-25, 15-13 win. “This year we’ve shown that we’re fighters and it feels good. It’s sweeter, I guess.”

Goodpasture (31-4), which cruised to 3-0 wins over South Greene and Summertown on Wednesday, had to work for every point in Thursday’s back-and-forth match with Trinity — the result of a phenomenal defensive performance on the part of the Lady Lions.

“We haven’t played many teams that were able to return as many balls as they did,” Lady Cougars coach Lynn Dearing said. “That team is well coached, they played hard and they got a touch on every single thing that we hit, no matter how hard we hit it.”

“It did get kind of frustrating because they were getting everything up,” Scruggs said. “It caused us to play a little smarter, and I think it made us play better as a team.”

Goodpasture captured wins in the first and third sets — 30-28 and 25-22 — but Trinity claimed games two and four — 25-23 and 25-17 — to force a fifth. The Lady Cougars looked to be in firm control of the fifth set, leading 7-2 after a kill by senior Kaitlyn Rankin. The Lady Lions, however, battled back to tie the score, 13-13, before losing the final two points.

“It was just a really fun match to play,” said Scruggs, who finished with a team-high 21 kills. “We just fought through some really, really hard battles. It was great to get that win because now we can rest tonight and get ready to play tomorrow.”

Trevecca Nazarene commitment Clare Taylor finished with 47 kills and 35 digs for the Lady Lions.