Submitted Photo South Prairie-Max junior outside hitter Keira Francis (17) attacks in the Royals’ semifinals match against the Valley City Hi-Liners at the 2025 state volleyball tournament at the Bismarck Event Center on Friday, Nov. 21. Photo courtesy of the WDA.

When North Dakota agreed to move from a two-class system to a three-class system in volleyball starting in 2025, one of the main talking points was that it would give more teams an opportunity to truly compete and potentially make deep runs in the postseason.

Valley City may turn out to be the poster child when highlighting the success of the newly created three-class system when the year is over.

The Hi-Liners experienced limited postseason success during their time playing in the EDC as a member of what is now Class AA. Since 2002, Valley City has never won the region tournament and only advanced to state three times. In those three years at state – their final appearance coming in 2020 – the Hi-Liners were 2-7.

The three-class system moved them down to the new Class A this season and it has paid immediate dividends for Valley City. The Hi-Liners finished second in Region 1 during the regular season, third in the Region 1 Tournament and advanced to state by winning a qualifying match over Carrington.

Now, the Hi-Liners are one win away from being state champions. Unfortunately, it came at the expense of top-seeded South Prairie-Max, which also had title aspirations on the mind after finishing runners-up last season. A litany of unforced errors inevitably doomed the Royals, who fell in four sets to No. 4 seed Valley City, 25-15, 23-25, 25-8, 25-22, in the state tournament semifinals on Friday, Nov. 21, at the Bismarck Event Center. The Hi-Liners will play May-Port-C-G in the state title game at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22. Both teams are seeking their first state title. The Patriots played in the title match in 2023, falling to Northern Cass.

The Hi-Liners (22-9) took no time establishing momentum, winning six of the first seven points. Before the Royals even knew what hit them, they found themselves behind 16-5. They strung together a mini 3-0 run with kills from Skotti Beck and Keira Francis, but unforced errors hurt South Prairie-Max all match. The Royals sailed a number of shots out of bounds, committed service errors and were called for net violations, giving free points to Valley City.

“We had some errors,” South Prairie-Max coach Lisa McQueen said. “In a couple of the sets, we took ourselves out of the game. Valley City is a very good team. They play big at the net and have some great hitters, but I felt in set one and set three we beat ourselves with the service errors, hitting out. We played in a wave. We played really good and then we would play down. We couldn’t consistently keep the momentum in our favor.”

The Royals (34-4-1) limited those unforced errors in the second set and therefore were able to stay within striking distance of the Hi-Liners despite trailing throughout the first half of the set. When the Royals needed offense, they turned to their big hitters in Beck and Francis. Francis herself recorded five straight points for South Prairie-Max on four kills and a block during an 8-3 run to take an 18-17 lead.

“We wanted them to get going and we knew in a certain rotation that Valley City was in, we could attack that outside even stronger, so we had to utilize that as much as we could and they played really well for us tonight,” McQueen said.

Three consecutive unforced errors with the score tied at 19 put the Royals in a late bind, but they rebounded by scoring six of the final seven points to square the match. Reagan Trudell served up three consecutive aces for the set’s final three points.

That momentum didn’t hold coming out of the break, as the Hi-Liners dominated the third set. They opened the set on a 9-1 run and cruised to an easy victory to reclaim the advantage in the match. Valley City’s Kadie Kocka was the go-to hitter, recording six of her team-high 17 kills in the middle set.

“They had a really good outside hitter, but I felt our block, we were there and we defended her as much as possible,” McQueen said. “They played some excellent defense against us. They were really scrappy and seemed to be everywhere. They were picking up things that normally other teams wouldn’t.”

Entering the match with just three losses all season, the Royals didn’t have much experience with trailing in a match. Two of its losses were in mid-season tournaments and their only other loss in the regular season came in five sets in which they led 2-0. So they went primarily to Beck and Francis looking to keep their season alive. The strategy appeared to be a good one, as the Royals took the lead early and led by as many as six points at 14-8.

The lead wouldn’t hold, however, as Valley City’s Skye Nielson led the comeback with four kills down the stretch. The Hi-Liners turned a 14-8 deficit into a 20-16 advantage and held on down the stretch despite Beck and Francis combining for 10 kills in the final set.

Beck finished with a match-high 19 kills and Francis registered 13. Beck also led the team with 17 digs and Francis added 11 digs and two aces.

Kocka led the Hi-Liners with 17 kills and 23 digs. Nielson chipped in eight kills.

South Prairie-Max concludes its season with a match for third place against Central Cass on Saturday, Nov. 22, at 10 a.m.