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MCBAIN - Boyne City never had a lead in its regional final against Kingsley in the Class C girls regional volleyball final last Thursday night at McBain High School.

That certainly wasn't the scenario Rambler head coach Casie Parker envisioned in the team's second appearance in a regional final match.

But there was a good reason Kingsley, which won its sixth straight district championship the week before, dominated the Ramblers as they did to take the minimum three-game win 25-19, 25-18 and 25-18.

"We didn't want it to end this soon, but Kingsley played great," Parker said afterward. "They didn't make any mistakes.

"They probably missed two serves the entire (match), and we had errors here and there."

Kingsley also found the Ramblers' weakness and exploited it.

Boyne City's right side blocker is short enough for teams to hit over the top. Kingsley did, and also managed to go on some runs when all-state middle hitter Amber Kotalik was in the front row.

Kingsley came out fast in all three games, taking big leads to put the Ramblers in catch-up mode the entire match.

The Ramblers trailed 0-4 to start the first game, and it was a 1-7 deficit before they finally made a comeback.

Picking themselves off the deck, the Ramblers cut the Stags' lead to one three times - the last at 17-18 after a kill by Lindsay Clemens, a kill from Hannah Robinson and a block by Kotalik.

Boyne City quickly fell behind 0-6 in the second game. The gap expanded to 4-11 and the Ramblers never got closer than six points the rest of the way.

Only in the third game did the Ramblers keep it close early, rallying to tie the score at 1-1 early.

It was only 2-3 before the Stags went on a run to grab a five-point lead 5-10 and eventually extended it to 10 points, 10-20.

Despite the season-ending loss, Parker was proud of the Ramblers, who she said played better than they had in last Tuesday night's 25-21, 25-14, 19-25, 25-21 victory over McBain.

"We played better than we had Tuesday night, but not enough to win, obviously," she said.

"They kept fighting. Kingsley took Amber (Kotalik) out of the game for us. And I don't think we got to play our game the entire night.

"I thought we were playing their game all night, and were trying to keep up with them. And that's hard to do when we can't get into our rhythm."

Kingsley hasn't lost a game since the start of the post-season tournament, and took a 55-7-4 record into Tuesday night's quarterfinals at Traverse City St. Francis.

Boyne City finished the season 34-11-10 and was led in the final match by Kotalik with 10 kills, four blocks, 31 serve receptions and 11 digs.

Hannah Hausler finished with seven kills, three blocks and eight digs. Rachel Stevens had five kills. Robinson and Stevens both served at 100 percent and Clemens had 20 assists.

"There's where our game got taken out," Parker said of Clemens' assist total. "She's usually in the upper 30's or 40's. We weren't able to set the ball up much."

In the win over McBain in the regional semifinal, Haulser had 18 digs and 41 serve receptions. Robinson finished with 14 digs, Stevens had 12 kills, Kotalik had 15 digs and 24 kills, and Clemens had 41 assists.

Contact Greg Gielczyk at gielczyk@jackpine.com.