It was clear on Thursday which team was new to the Class A state volleyball tournament and which squad had been there before.
While West No. 2 Jamestown - making its first appearance since 2001 - sent attack opportunities well out of bounds, East No. 3 West Fargo, returning to the tournament for a second straight year, made few mistakes.
The Packers used Jamestown's errors to their advantage, sweeping the Blue Jays (25-21, 25-19, 25-23) to advance to the semifinals.
"I think we put a lot of pressure on them right from the beginning," West Fargo coach Paula Pierson said. "We came in and talked about staying relaxed and really focusing on what we will succeed with."
The Packers found success by having their two middle blockers, senior Christina Bruenjes and junior Amanda Levin, attack off of slides set up by senior setter Andrea Klug.
The plan worked, as Levin had 15 kills and Bruenjes had 12 to pace West Fargo.
"We just wanted to come out and play our game because we know that when we swing, no one can stop us," Bruenjes said. "If we start tipping, we know that that's not our game and we just sink to the other team's level, so as long as we kept hitting, we can beat anyone."
The Blue Jays had leads in all three sets, but whenever they needed to add to those leads or stop a Packer run, errors plagued them. Net violations, bad serves and attack errors were rampant throughout the match.
"Our plan coming in here was to put pressure on them, to serve tough and keep them out of system and I don't feel like we did that," Blue Jays coach Sara Hegerle said. "This is the first experience for a lot of these kids, but I'm sick of using it as an excuse. They've all touched the same volleyball over and over again. We had some of our best offensive players that have scored for us all year hitting balls 15, 20 feet out of bounds and missing serves."
Klug had a match-high 37 assists. Junior outside hitter Courtney Suppa had 14 digs for West Fargo. Senior middle blocker Siri Jystad led Jamestown with eight kills and junior setter Josiah Hegerle added 18 assists.
The Packers play Grand Forks Red River in the semifinals at 6 p.m. today. Jamestown faces Bismarck in a consolation match at noon.