South Warren’s Ashtyn Vandiver (right) hits against Logan County’s Rachel Dezarn on Thursday during South Warren’s 3-0 win at Logan County High School.

RUSSELLVILLE – The South Warren volleyball team passed its final dress rehearsal before the postseason with a 3-0 (25-15, 25-20, 25-20) win Thursday at Logan County.

South Warren (21-9) wasn’t at full strength, with junior hitter Erin Nerland out with an injury, but still battled with a balanced attack to end the final week with wins over Logan County, Central Hardin and Owenboro Catholic.

“It’s kind of why we have always scheduled this game,” South Warren coach Justin Griffin said. “We know it is going to be a competitive game. I thought we came out and played with energy. We did a lot of good things tonight. We are just trying to take care of things that we want to clean up at the end of the season. I think we played pretty solid tonight.”

The Spartans got off to a quick start, winning the first set 25-15, and jumped out to an 8-2 advantage in the second set before Logan County (19-10) tried to battle back. Lady Cougars senior hitter Karrah Cron had four kills in the set to help Logan County get as close as three points on several occasions, the last time at 23-20 before South Warren was able to close it out.

South Warren used a 9-3 spurt in the third set to snap an 8-all tie and take a 17-11 advantage, but Logan County made another charge – getting within 22-19 – before the Spartans closed it out, with the final point coming on a kill by Annie Goley.

“I felt like we were a little sluggish coming out,” Logan County coach Steven Lyne said. “We are on fall break, but it is no excuse. The girls were a little sluggish, but you can’t take anything away from South Warren. They are always prepared and ready to go.”

Sophie Pemberton, who came back from injury Tuesday, paced the South Warren offense with 11 kills. Lexi Button had 10 kills, Goley added seven kills and Sydney Clayton finished with 40 assists.

“I think our hitters are doing a much better job taking care of the ball,” Griffin said. “Sydney is doing a great job of getting them the ball in system and even when we are out of system, we are getting some good swings.”

South Warren junior hitter Lexi Button said some good has come from the recent rash of injuries with younger players like Goley and Sophie Doszak making the most of their opportunity to play.

“Our team is very deep,” Button said. “We have a lot of sophomores that have been able to step up and help the team tremendously.”

South Warren will now turn its attention to the postseason, where it will meet Bowling Green in the District 14 Tournament on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Bowling Green. It’s the same opponent the Spartans had to face last year in its first district tournament game, with South Warren winning and going on to win the Region 4 Tournament and finish in the state semifinals.

“I just hope we can kind of get healthy a bit before Tuesday and then go out and do the best we can and play well,” Griffin said. “It’s a scary match. They are such a good team, can do a lot of good things. We have to be ready for anything.”

Logan County, which will be the top seed in next week’s District 13 Tournament, will finish the regular season at the Toyota of Hopkinsville Western Kentucky Smack Down this weekend – with the first opponent Valley at 7:30 p.m. Friday.{&end}