HERMANN — Hermann volleyball has taken second at the Class 2 State Tournament after losing a close championship game against the Fair Grove Eagles Saturday, Nov. 4, by a three-sets-to-two final margin.

The Lady Bearcats held the initiative to start Saturday’s game as they took two of the first three sets, but were unable to finish off the Eagles and gave up the last two to their opponents. 

Hermann (21-18), while unable to pull out the victory in five sets in the championship game, had made it to that game after dispatching the Bishop LeBlond Golden Eagles the day before in a come-from-behind win that played out similarly to their final game.

Bishop LeBlond appeared to have Hermann on the ropes Friday afternoon after taking a two-sets-to-one lead, but the Lady Bearcats regrouped and came back with a 25-23 win in the fourth set and kept up the momentum with a convincing 15-7 win in the decisive fifth set to advance and give them the chance to play for first on Saturday.

On Saturday, Hermann picked up right where they had left off, starting the championship game against Fair Grove with wins in the first and third sets, 25-22 and 25-17 respectively, and looked to have moved on from the close-fought semifinal game, but the final result would show Fair Grove following in Hermann’s footsteps from the day before.

The Eagles came back to narrowly win the penultimate fourth set 25-21, tying the teams at two sets apiece and setting the stage for a winner-take-all set five with the Class 2 State title on the line.

Although the Lady Bearcats had come one set away from taking down Fair Grove, they ultimately fell just short of consecutive five-set wins – only the fourth and fifth games they had played all season that needed five sets and the only back-to-back examples.

Fair Grove quickly seized and expanded their lead in the fifth set to clinch the championship with a 15-5 victory over Hermann.

The Lady Bearcats took second place for the second year in a row, continuing a recent run of success that has seen them claim three first-place, three second-place, and two third-place State finishes dating back to 2016.

The game was the last for outgoing seniors Allie Buesking, Breckyn Koeller, Jill Rood, and Kylee McCubbin, all having contributed to the team’s success throughout the season all the way up through the final game against Fair Grove.

Buesking finished the season with the team’s second most digs at 320 and their third most serving aces with 50, behind Koeller’s 52. Koeller also led her team with 1110 assists, a total that helped her break Hermann High School career assist record this season. Rood and McCubbin were frequent recipients of those assists with Rood putting up 343 kills on the year and McCubbin 133.