No. 5 Arcadia upset No. 1 Salpointe 3-2 Thursday night to advance to the 4A championship final where the Titans will take on No. 3 Estrella Foothills Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Estrella Foothills upset No. 2 ALA-Gilbert North in straight sets in the other semifinal match of the night.

Arcadia lost back-to-back Division II championship finals in 2011 and 2012 and the program moved up to the 5A Conference in 2020 where the team made it to the semifinal round right away. A quarterfinal finish last year was followed by a shift back down to the 4A Conference this fall. Estrella Foothills was the 4A runner-up in 2019 so this is guaranteed to be the first state championship for either program.

Salpointe played in the semifinal round for the seventh time in eight years and that span includes three state titles and a runner-up finish under head coach Heather Moore-Martin. Martin lost the services of junior standout Megan Muehlebach during warmups of the quarterfinal victory over No. 8 Mica Mountain on Tuesday and that caused some major shifts in defense and offense with Muehlebach being the third highest option at the net and a cornerstone in the back row along with seniors Gabriella Monge and Frankie Pieroni. Being able to dig out shots from a power-team like Arcadia, while simultaneously turning multiple difficult defensive stops into workable passes to the front is one thing, but placing balls where your setter can make the right decisions in a fraction of a second is another, and that timing and skill is difficult to replace this late in the year.

“Not only is Megan an emotional leader and an inspirational leader, she's a fine volleyball player and losing her was huge,” Moore-Martin said. “It showed right here at the end of the match tonight and we didn't have the digs that she normally comes up with or the passing and she's just mentally tough and we had to ask a sophomore to step up and ask a freshman to step up and they did a good job for sure and we almost pulled it off.”

The Lancers started out strong with a 25-16 victory in the first set with junior setter Sophia Hernandez feeding Pieroni, Lexi Hutchens and Kate Mobley but the crowd got to see a bit more of Arcadia senior Tatum Longnecker and the play of Zoe Leonard, who scored on almost every opportunity, along with Ryan Sheedy and Taylor Soule, in the second set where the Titans won 25-19.

The third set proved to be everything a fan would want in a quality volleyball match with back and forth action starting with the Titans erasing a 13-10 deficit with Longnecker hitting Lane Sheedy and then Ryan Sheedy two more times to help put Arcadia up 14-13. Hernandez turned to her ace and Pieroni scored twice to retake the lead. Ryan Sheedy scored again and a net violation brought the set to 16-16 but a service error put Salpointe back up only to have Leonard put down one of her towering kills. Pieroni returned the favor but another service error brought the set to 18-18.

A kill from Hutchens and a couple of aces from Alyssa Robles helped lead to a 22-18 advantage for the Lancers but a kill from Soule and Ryan Sheedy was followed by a block from Leonard and then a kill from Leonard and the Salpointe lead was only 23-22. The Titans had the right rotation in to take the set over but Mobley and Pieroni scored to take the set 25-23.

The Titans came back and dominated the fourth set 25-16 to send the match to a fifth set and things went well for the Lancers early. The Titans lost at home to Salpointe in five sets way back on Sept. 8 and that fifth set went to 15-13 so there was no doubt this one would be equally entertaining.

Pieroni came up with two quick scores and Salpointe led 4-1 but the Titans slowly moved forward and the team worked to a 7-6 lead on a block from Lane Sheedy. The set played even for a while until Leila Lowther scored to put Salpointe up 11-9 and the Lancers eventually went up 13-10.

“We were thinking just one point at a time,” Arcadia head coach Jackie Bunker said on being down 13-10, “I knew if we could get our passes in our system we could get Zoe going. We can rattle off points in that rotation and we scored 10 points in a row at CDO in that rotation and so I knew if we could get it going, we could push some points.”

Having Leonard in the front row instead of on the bench proved to be a huge difference. Longnecker hit Ryan Sheedy to make it 13-11 and another point made it 13-12. Leonard scored and the fifth set was tied up 13-13. An ace from Ryan Sheedy had the Arcadia fans full of anticipation and then a miss from Salpointe led to a 15-13 win for the Titans.

“Every team is who they are right now,” Bunker added. “So, to me it's more just believe it in ourselves and make the best out of whatever path we have. I think one of our strengths is it can be messy, but we can find a way to score the point.”

Moore-Martin led several championship teams, with three from the Salpointe girls and two from the Catalina boys to go along with two beach volleyball championships at Salpointe, but there is always some sense of accomplishment with every group of athletes and she felt this group had something special.

“The parents of the seniors were just so great and supportive,” Moore-Martin added. “Never heard a word from them all year in terms of, ‘why didn't you’ and ‘why aren't my,’ just great parents. Parents all around the world need to know that it's them that makes coaches either quit coaching or continue to coach.

“We had great parents this year and I just appreciated them supporting all year long and their kids were like them. Their parents taught them to be gracious and hardworking and fighters and it really led us to be great team.”

Salpointe finished 18-1 in power-ranking matches and 28-7 overall.