It took the Boyd-Buchanan volleyball team a little while to get going in Saturday afternoon’s District 5-A/AA tournament semifinal.

Once they did, the host Lady Buccaneers were unstoppable.

With a 3-0 win over Grace Academy, they earned a spot in Tuesday night’s championship match. The Lady Bucs will host Arts & Sciences, which defeated McMinn Central 3-2 in its semifinal in Englewood.

“We started out really slow,” Boyd-Buchanan senior setter Shelby May said. “I think we were kind of nervous, but we kept fighting. We pulled together and got it done.”

The Lady Bucs were seeded first in their half of the district, while Grace was the No. 2 team from the opposite side after splitting its regular-season matches with McMinn Central and losing the tiebreaker. That left the two rivals to face each other with elimination on the line, and the Lady Golden Eagles took control of the first game early.

Grace led 14-9, but Boyd-Buchanan pulled ahead at 17-16 on a kill from Rachel Harper and went on to secure a 25-19 victory with a kill from Breejante Williams.

“That was huge,” Lady Bucs coach Kristi Lenoir said. “If you give another team an opportunity to feel good about itself, you’re doing nothing but making it tougher on yourself. And you could tell that Grace came out flat after that. They had been doing everything well, but they were a different team in the second and third games.”

Boyd-Buchanan, which advanced with a 3-0 quarterfinal win over Silverdale Baptist Academy on Saturday morning, used five aces to cruise to a 25-7 win in game two and took game three 25-11.

“Serving is huge, and we preach that,” Lenoir said. “We served well, and we were more focused and together (the last two games).”

Williams and Stephanie Silvers led the Lady Bucs (30-10) with 10 kills apiece, while Rachel Harper and Hope Johnson each made 15 digs. May finished with 23 assists, seven kills and 14 digs, and she and Williams — the team’s only seniors — are excited about the opportunity to defend their district title Tuesday at 6 p.m.

“This means so much,” May said. “I don’t know what I would have done if we didn’t win.”

* Arts & Sciences 3, McMinn Central 2: The Lady Patriots earned their spot in Tuesday’s district final by outlasting the host Chargerettes. CSAS took the first two games by 25-13 scores, but McMinn Central responded to win game three 25-8 and hold on for a 30-28 game-four thriller.

The Lady Patriots (33-6) finished the victory with a 15-9 win. Kayla Kelly recorded 20 kills and nine blocks after making 22 kills in a quarterfinal win over Polk County.

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