Aberdeen Central put forth one of its best efforts of the season, but it wasn’t quite enough Thursday night.

Sioux Falls Jefferson scored the final six points of the match to pull out a dramatic Class AA SoDak 16 volleyball victory at Golden Eagles Arena. The Cavaliers won their first five-set match in eight tries this season with a 25-21, 28-26, 18-25, 19-25, 15-12 triumph.

Central actually scored three more overall points than Jefferson, and recorded a season-best .282 hitting percentage, but couldn’t get the three points it needed late in the final set.

“It was just a game of inches,” said Central coach Jackie Bindenagel, noting the Golden Eagles nearly had an ace near the end of the match that the Cavaliers just dug up on the way to winning a crucial point. “It was just right there.”

The fact that the match went down to the wire, did not surprise her.

“They’re a good team, they’ve got some great hitters, they’ve got a good setter over there,” Bindenagel said of the Cavaliers. “I knew when I woke up this morning, that I would be circling set five on my lineup sheet. I just knew it was going to be this back and forth.”

In the end, Jefferson did something it had not done in any of its previous five-set matches. It found a way to finish.

“They have the fear of failure and every single time we get to that fifth set, it’s happened a different way,” said Jefferson coach Beth Donnelly.

This time, with their backs against the wall, facing a 12-9 deficit with the season on the line, the Cavaliers came up clutch.

“Tonight, it was different. It was rise to the occasion. They knew it was do or die,” Donnelly said. “Every other match, we lose, we go home, we practice harder, we get better. Tonight, they just were determined.”

Jefferson won the first two sets to put Central into a big hole. But the Golden Eagles didn’t panic. They produced.

“When we went into the huddle when we were going to that third set, we were like nothing touches the floor without a body on the floor with it. That was our mentality and nothing dropped. I give credit to Kalli Huff,” said Central senior Lauryn Burckhard. “Kalli Huff came in the third set, fourth and fifth, and played her heart out, and I give so much credit to her.”

Huff finished with team-leading totals of 10 aces and 28 digs in the match.

The Golden Eagles kept battling and pulled away from a 19-17 edge to finish off the third set, and then jumped out to a 6-1 lead on the way to winning the fourth set to level the match.

“Obviously, we had a lot of motivation because we knew what was at stake,” said Central senior Alivia Miller, “so we all wanted it really, really badly. We gave it our all.”

The Cavaliers had an 8-6 lead in the fifth set before Annie Bindenagel had a pair of kills to help Central level the set at 9-9. The junior finished with a career-high 14 kills.

“At the beginning I was definitely kind on edge, but I just settled in and my teammates helped me a lot with that,” Bindenagel said. “They’re just very encouraging, especially having a lot of people around me that have been playing for so long.”

Bindenagel’s last kill of the evening started a four-point surge that left the Golden Eagles just three points away from advancing to the state tournament. However, the hosts were unable to score another point the rest of the way.

“Our seniors, we’ve been working all year for this and we played our best,” Burckhard said. “We came back, we found the energy and then we lost it in the last three points we needed. Jefferson played great towards the end, and that’s nothing you can do about that.”

The Cavaliers got a big block to start their final run, added an ace serve, and received two kills each from Emeri Bartels and Maycey Gwin to finish off the win.

“They found their block,” Burckhard said. “We were swinging hard all night, we were tooling them, we were getting them to the ground, and they finally put their block together.”

Burckhard finished with a career-high 26 kills on the evening. The Cavaliers never found an answer for her.

“She’s not somebody that you contain. She’s somebody you just have to try and weather the storm with,” Donnelly said. “I thought our matchup was good on her, our problem was our timing was so off. She is one of the those type of players that whatever ball goes up, she has a great step close and she just hits super high and hard. Our defense did what they could.”

Burckhard had just seven kills in a prior match against Jefferson.

“She was due and she definitely let us have it,” Donnelly said.

Central finished with a whopping 66 kills on the night, 10 aces, and 109 digs, totals seldom seen in a setback.

“Our outsides combined for 40 kills, our right sides had nearly 20. Those are the numbers we knew we needed to have,” Coach Bindenagel said. “It was just a play here and there.”

The Golden Eagles finished the season with a 16-11 record, despite losing starter Kamdyn Borge to injury midway through the season.

“We had a lot of challenges we had to face,” Miller said. “We had a lot of girls step up, and play in their role and succeeded. Our team played together.”

And delivered a top performance in the biggest match of the season.

“You cannot fault the effort one bit,” Coach Bindenagel said. “Every kid played as absolutely hard as they could, and that’s all we ever want.”

The future looks bright for the Golden Eagles, who have a number of players coming back.

“I think it just makes us hopeful for next year,” Annie Bindenagel said, “because we have so many returning juniors and it’s going to be a really fun group to play with.”

Serving: Aberdeen Central 92-101 10 aces (Kalli Huff 17-19 7 aces, Julia Malsam 18-18 2 aces, Lauryn Burckhard 9-10 1 ace).

Hitting: Aberdeen Central 167-189 66 kills (Burckhard 58-67 26 kills, Annie Bindenagel 32-37 14 kills, Alivia Miller 20-21 9 kills, Kyley Wirebaugh 30-34 8 kills).

Setting: Aberdeen Central 156-156 59 assists (Cam Albrecht 54-54 28 assists, Miller 72-72 27 assists, Burckhard 4-4 2 assists).

Digs: Aberdeen Central 109 (Huff 28, Miller 23, Malsam 22, Burckhard 16).

Blocks: Aberdeen Central 1 solo (Karlie Nieman 1).

Records: Sioux Falls Jefferson 13-11; Aberdeen Central 16-11.