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The Southern Regional High School girls volleyball team will be defending its state Group IV title.

The third-seeded Rams defeated seventh-seeded East Brunswick 2-0 (26-24, 25-16) in the semifinals Thursday to advance to the championship game. Southern meets top-seeded Bridgewater-Raritan (31-0) in the finals Saturday at 10 a.m. at William Paterson University.

"We feel as of right now we're still the Group IV champions, and it's going to be very hard for someone to take that away from us," Southern coach Eric Maxwell said by phone Thursday night.

The Rams led most of the first game until East Brunswick came back to take a 22-20 lead. From there, the Bears scored four straight points to go up 24-22.

"We dug a hole for ourselves," Maxwell said. "So I called a timeout, and we just talked about the fact that we know how to win these close games."

Southern scored four straight points for a 26-24 win.

"It was a huge emotional lift for us," Maxwell said.

Southern trailed 10-5 in the Game 2 when Maxwell called another timeout, and his players responded again. Junior Katie Mancini served eight straight points, including an ace. The Rams scored 20 of the next 26 points and won 25-16.

"We were up 18-11 and senior Avery Hodgson, our big middle hitter, really dominated down the stretch with several big kills," Maxwell said.

Outside hitter Chelsea Post had five kills in the match and setter Janine Kaiser had 19 assists. Libero Taran Volta had nine digs, while Erin Horelman added seven.

Southern (40-3) added on to its school record for wins. Now, it will have to get past unbeaten East Brunswick to defend its title. It will be the first meeting between the schools.

"We are a really hard working team," Hodgson said. "We fight for every point and we have a lot of heart."

Contact Kelly Ashe:

609-272-7210

KAshe@pressofac.com

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