CASTLEWOOD – It was arguably the toughest road to qualify for this year’s State B Volleyball Tournament.

Castlewood dropped the first two sets of its SoDak 16 match before rallying to win the final three and grab a return trip to the state tourney.

“I’m very proud of the girls,” said Castlewood coach Breanna DeKam. “I don’t think we’ve ever come back two down. They did a really good job.”

DeKam said she had a message for the Warriors following the first two sets of that match against Faith.

“They kind of follow off my lead, so I felt I was up tight a little bit the first two games. … I told the girls we haven’t been playing as a team,” DeKam said. “We haven’t been relaxed. That’s where our focus needs to shift to.”

The squad responded as Castlewood swept the final three sets to punch its ticket to state.

The Warriors will enter the tourney as the eighth seed with a 19-10 record following a difficult regular-season schedule that included five total matches against Class A state qualifiers Hamlin and Sioux Valley, as well as State B qualifier Colman-Egan.

“I enjoy our schedule because it is so tough. We play a lot of good A schools,” DeKam said. “I think our tough schedule has prepared us not only for that Sweet 16 game, but going into the tournament. We know what it feels like to be down, and we can battle back.”

The Warriors return just three starters from a year ago. The team is lead by senior standout Emerson Carter, who racked up 29 kills in the SoDak 16 win.

“She’s definitely stepped up as a leader. We moved her to the outside as well this year and that’s really helped our team, just to have some confidence knowing we can always go to her and she’d be able to put it down on the court,” DeKam said. “She’s got the right mentality. She steps out on that court and she has that confidence, which is great.”

Other leaders include Libero Nora Solberg, and hitter and setter Cassidy Kirwan.

DeKam said the season has been a work in progress.

“We’ve definitely switched roles throughout the season. It hasn’t been the same rotation all year, which has been a struggle for us, but I think we’ve definitely settled in,” DeKam said. “I have two freshmen who have stepped up big time: Ava Ruml, and Claire Horn. … They’ve really stepped up in a big way.”

While others might have been a bit surprised that Castlewood once again qualified for state despite losing so many seniors last year, DeKam saw the potential that her players possessed.

“I was pretty confident that we could at least make a run for it. I just knew that we had a lot of talented girls,” DeKam said. “They all have put in a lot of time in the off season to get better. I knew we were going to have ups and downs. I didn’t expect us to win every single game. I’m definitely proud of where we ended up in the end.”

The Warriors will take on top-seeded and defending State B champion Chester Area to open the tourney at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls. It’s a rematch of last year’s semifinal match in the state tournament. The Flyers feature a variety of left-handed hitters.

“That’s definitely something that we are looking at and preparing for. They’re a program that has stepped up a lot throughout the past 5-10 years. We know that they’re a powerful team,” DeKam said. “You watch their game film and I don’t even know sometimes if they make errors. They’re a solid team. We’re definitely not going into this thinking it’s going to be easy.”

While the Warriors will definitely be underdogs in that match, they were also enter the tournament with loads of confidence, coming back from the brink of extinction in the SoDak 16 last week.

“That’s what I try to portray to the girls,” DeKam said. “We’ve got a lot of support back home. We’re going to have a good crowd. We have to believe in ourselves, just like our crowd will believe in us.”