CLEVELAND, Tenn. - A fifth set wasn't an option for the Cleveland High School volleyball team Tuesday.
Walker Valley sure tried to change that, though.
Cleveland's Lady Raiders won the District 5-AAA championship with a 3-1 defeat of the Lady Mustangs at Bradley Central's Jim Smiddy Arena. Both teams qualify for the Region 3 tournament next week.
Cleveland (30-15) had won both regular-season meetings in five sets. The scores this time were 25-20, 24-26, 25-23, 25-19.
"Five games was non-negotiable," Cleveland coach Trish Flowers said. "I talked to a couple of players during the day, and we talked to the players during school and after school about it and said we weren't going five this time because we weren't going to make as many errors and because of the way we've been playing, and it happened, so it was exciting to see."
Flowers had told players during the day that she believed they "would take them in four."
After winning the first set the Lady Raiders led late in the second, but the Lady Mustangs rallied to win on a kill by Aly Grace Lemons. Cleveland responded to win the final two sets despite falling behind in both - punctuated by kills by district most valuable player Emma Flowers, who also was named the tournament MVP.
Lemons had 18 kills to lead the Lady Mustangs (23-13), while Macy Nipper added 11. Sophie Frederick had 42 assists.
"We had some chances, some opportunities," Walker Valley coach Judy Pruett said. "We were ahead a few times, had the momentum at different times, but we couldn't keep the momentum.
"We made a few too many errors to get to the fifth game."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.