COEUR d'ALENE - St. Maries volleyball coach Missy Asbury admits her team hasn't been the greatest in early morning tournament matches this year.

That changed on Friday.

The Lumberjacks defeated the Sugar-Salem Diggers 25-19, 25-20, 28-26 in the opening match in the state 3A tournament at Lake City High to advance to the semifinals today at 9 a.m.

St. Maries (25-8) will face Snake River today at 9 a.m. for a berth in the championship match later tonight. Snake River beat St. Maries in the championship match last year at Wendell High.

Snake River beat Parma 25-20, 25-22, 25-12 to advance.

"We came into this week with nothing to lose," St. Maries senior Marlee Masterson said. "We pushed hard all week in practice and didn't take a day off. Every practice this week was at full speed and very intense."

Masterson finished with 29 kills and two aces.

“Marlee is a pretty amazing hitter,” Asbury said. “She knows what to do on the floor and wants to get the job done.”

With its match scheduled to begin at 8 a.m., St. Maries left its school at 5:45 a.m. on Friday and in an effort to snap out of its early tournament struggles, Asbury did not allow the players to sleep or use their cell phones on the bus ride to Coeur d’Alene.

“We made sure everyone was totally focused on the opening match,” Asbury said. “There was no other way we could drag them in here that early and get the job done.”

“We talked about it each day,” Masterson said. “We were so excited for this week to come and just need to stay level headed and come out swinging tomorrow.”

St. Maries won the first two games easily, but trailed for most of the third game. Sugar-Salem led 16-10 before a Mariah Gladden kill kick-started a St. Maries rally.

“I was shocked,” Asbury said. “It wasn’t that I doubted they could come back like that, but I was already making plans for the fourth game. It was awesome to see. I was very proud of how they battled back.”

Lakin Anxo had a pair of kills to extend the game after Sugar-Salem had game point twice.

“It made us push ourselves harder,” Gladden said. “We got frustrated, but it was more fun to battle than just swing away like we had been doing.”

“Mariah usually gets the job done,” said Asbury of Gladden, who had three blocks. “She usually hits straight down, but they were really good at getting the ball up, but she saved us with her blocking today.”

Jaylee Sines had 35 assists and Abbey Anderson had 11 digs for St. Maries.

“She was great today,” Sugar-Salem coach Cami Dodson said of Masterson. “The whole program is great. We knew we had to push them to compete, but we just didn’t have enough of it. We’re a young team and our girls played their hearts out. St. Maries has always had a great program and develops their players well.”

Georgia Brown had 13 kills and McKall Miller had 28 assists for Sugar-Salem.

Priest River fell to Fruitland in its opening round match 25-15, 25-14, 27-25 to drop into the consolation bracket and was eliminated by Buhl in four games to conclude the season 13-10.

Lakeside notches first win at state

LEWISTON — The Knights posted their first victory in school history at the state 1A Division I tournament with a 32-30, 25-17, 25-17 win over Cascade in a loser out match at Lewis-Clark State College.

Earlier, Lakeside lost to defending champion Challis 25-12, 25-9, 25-13.

Lakeside (14-8), in its third state tournament appearance, will face Hagerman in the consolation championship match today at 2 p.m.

Further details were not available.