West Noble’s Tori Miller celebrates a point during her team’s 3-0 win over Fairfield in the Fairfield Volleyball Sectional semi-finals Saturday morning. (Photos by Mike Deak)

BENTON – West Noble and NorthWood extended their volleyball seasons Saturday morning with 3-0 wins in the semi-finals of the Class 3-A Fairfield Volleyball Sectional. The two will meet tonight at 5 p.m. in the championship game at Fairfield.

West Noble 3, Fairfield 0

In a sizeable upset, West Noble knocked out host Fairfield in the first game of the day, leaving plenty of jaws on the floor. Despite West Noble already having beaten Fairfield twice during the season – including in the title game of the Northeast Corner Conference tournament a week ago – the Chargers shocked the home team and its fan base with a sparkling display.

Fairfield’s Makayla Bell hits the floor to set up a pass.

West Noble’s 25-22 win in game one saw the Chargers take a stunning 19-15 lead, only for Fairfield to battle back to with five straight points to go up front. But a pair of Falcon errors, including game point, swung the tide, and set the tone for the rest of the match.

West Noble’s Kaylie Warble asserted herself in the 25-14 game two, covering a huge block at 19-12 and pounding a pair of kills to finish the game. A pair of Warble kills in game three tied the score at 23, and a Tori Miller kill tied the score at 25. Madison Schermerhorn closed out the upset with a kill, putting the score at 27-25, and the Chargers into the championship game.

“We haven’t won a sectional for our school in 20 years,” stated an emotional Charger head coach Kaija Kauffman. “I think we have an advantage because we want it. We want to put our names in the history books, put our picture on the wall. That’s something that we talked about all offseason and this season. Getting back to that championship game feels good, but we still have to finish it.”

Fairfield concludes its season 22-9, out in the semis for the second straight year.

West Noble (30-5) is playing for a chance to win its first sectional title since 1996, and will rematch NorthWood from the 2016 final, which the Panthers won 3-1 on the Chargers’ home floor.

NorthWood 3, Wawasee 0

The sectional was on a second upset alert as NorthWood struggled to put Wawasee away despite the shutout victory.

Wawasee’s Seaquinn is geeked after scoring a point on NorthWood.

The Panthers won 25-22, 25-23, 25-12, really only looking comfortable in the third game as errors plagued both sides.

A pair of Wawasee errors pushed NorthWood ahead to stay at 21-17 in the first game, to which Wawasee couldn’t recover. In game two, NorthWood had a pair of mishits knot the score at 21, only for Wawasee to immediately commit a service error to give Wood the lead for good. Haylee Pennington was a monster in the second game, recording three blocks in a five-point span.

NorthWood raced out to a 20-8 lead in the third game, which was never really in doubt.

“We’ve played with every team all year long,” said NorthWood head coach Hilary Laidig. “We’ve played up to good teams and played down to teams we should beat. It takes us forever to get started, which didn’t worry me since we’ve done that all year. But I really would have liked to see us start better than we did.”

Wawasee (6-21) had Seaquinn Bright led the team with 10 digs and five kills. Madie Wilson added 17 digs.

“We have been preparing for this match and this team for the last week,” stated Wawasee head coach Kayla Riportella. “The first time we saw them, we didn’t earn our points, and today we wanted to make NorthWood earn what they got. We gave them a run, but I saw a lot of nerves from our girls. I liked the fight we showed as the game went on, but I can’t be upset with how we played. We left it on the line today.”

NorthWood (17-16) is seeking its 21st sectional title and a repeat for the first time since the program won four straight from 2007-10.

NorthWood’s Haylee Pennington pushes an attempt over on Wawasee.