On Saturday, La Pietra’s varsity volleyball team got a much-needed win over St. Andrew's Priory to earn the final Division II state berth for the Interscholastic League of Honolulu (ILH). The Panthers will join St. Francis and Hawaii Baptist Academy as the tournament’s ILH representatives.

La Pietra coach Alicia Arnott ’03 was relieved that the team locked up a spot in the tournament. If St. Andrew's had won, the two teams would have had to play again on Tuesday for one final match.

"Mentally it would have been tough to have to come back and play them again," Arnott said. "I was a little worried that they would come into the game thinking they had one more chance to win on Tuesday, if they lost. But they didn't. They were totally prepared."

Junior outside hitter Ariana Sattler led the team with 20 kills, and senior Salote Lopes-Liutolo had nine kills. Gigi Murray led St. Andrew's with 13 kills, and Sofia Luczak had 19 assists.

La Pietra led throughout the first two sets. The Panthers' biggest lead came in the first set, when they took advantage of five St. Andrew's errors for a nine-point advantage.

The second set was the tightest of the night, with a long rally that consisted of heavy offensive attacks from Lopes-Liutolo. Each of her attempts was dug by St. Andrew's back row, with St. Andrew's eventually winning that rally to tie it up at 20-20.

But Priory’s rally was quieted when La Pietra junior Chelsea Cypress served up two aces in a row on the way to closing out the set at 25-20.

The first round of the tournament begins on Tuesday, October 30. For more information, visit the HHSAA website.

Information from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser was used in this story.