The Sun Valley Indian School Warriors upset the No. 1 seed in the Desert Pines Sports League volleyball tournament, but fell in the championship game to the No. 2 St. Anthony’s Eagles. The Warriors looked great coming out of the gate in the semifinals of the tourney Dec. 12, jumping to a 20-7 lead over the No. 1 seed Mountain Christian School Lions, but they failed to complete their mission. The Lions came storming back to prove why they earned the top seed, defeating the Warriors 26-24 in the first game. The Warriors then jumped to another big lead in the second game, but this time they showed resolve by doing the little things they were taught and defeated the Lions 25-19. The third game enabled Warrior Irina Joe to get two chances at serving and she came through. Only up by two at 10-8, she served the way to victory and the Warriors finished the upset over the favored Lions, 15-9. This meant a rematch of the No. 2 St. Anthony’s Eagles and the No. 4 Warriors in the championship. The championship match began with a thrilling first game. The Warriors jumped out to a sizeable lead once again, but saw the Eagles hang in there until SVIS finally put them away, 25-17. This was the first victory over the Eagles in three games, though the previous two losses were by only a total of seven points. The Warriors then hit a wall, lost confidence and focus, and could not recover. The Eagles jumped out to an early 4-0 lead. SVIS Coach Kris Miller called timeout to regroup his team, only to see the lead go to 10-2 before his next timeout. Never again did the Warriors regain their composure, losing 25-10 and 15-5 in the second and third games. To get to the championship game is a blessing, said Coach Miller, and he is definitely proud of the team. The students played hard all year, but ultimately fell short. To get that far, the Warriors gritted out the first match of the tourney, showing determination and toughness as they defeated Sequoia. The Warriors were victorious in the first game, 25-21, but they had to come from behind and played behind most of the match. Nothing was going right, little things seemed to fail them, sets, serves, digs, all seemed to be too tough. Subbing didn’t work, whatever it was seemed to be between the ears, according to Coach Miller. Ultimately they took the lead at 21-20 with a junior varsity player serving them to 24-21, then they were blessed with a bad serve to take the first game. In the second game the Warriors flexed some muscles, winning 25-6. While everything went wrong in the first game, everything went right in the second. They found their attackers, they utilized their team with three hits and their serves were dropping in bunches as aces.