Centralia wins TVL Volleyball Tournament in dominant Saturday.

The Centralia Lady Panther volleyball team proved why they are considered the top team in 1A Division 1 in the grueling Twin Valley League Tournament on Saturday in Washington.

Centralia opened the tournament taking down the 8 seed Clifton-Clyde 25-21 and 25-13. This was a great introduction to what was going to be a day of tests. Despite being the 8 seed the Lady Eagles were no slouch coming into this tournament near .500 and featuring multiple first team league candidates.

Match 2 for Centralia was a semifinal tilt against 5 seed Blue Valley who was coming off of a straight set victory over 4 seed D-West.

This match may have been the Panthers best of the day and arguably one of their most impressive efforts of the year as they would punch their ticket to the final with a 25-20, 25-16.

Blue Valley has been sneaky good this year and proved to be more of a challenge than expected for some onlookers but once again the Panthers were able to outlast the Lady Rams in this one.

In this year's tournament final, Centralia would meet up with the Linn girls who had just survived an uber talented Hanover team, defeating the Lady Wildcats in two 25-23, 25-23.

From the opening serve, these two teams put on a show for a jam-packed and extremely loud TVL crowd at Washington County who knew exactly what they were about to get.

Linn got out to a lead early but Centralia chipped away at it and flipped the script on the Bulldogs to take a 25-21 win in the set. In set 2, Linn would do it again getting a 13-6 lead forcing a Centralia timeout.

Out of the timeout Centralia went on an 8-1 run to tie it at 14. Centralia would continue their run pushing their lead to 3. Linn would answer back and take a 23-21 lead in a must win for the team.

The Lady Bulldogs would clinch that 2nd set with a 25-22 to probably rather appropriately and to the crowd's delight force a 3rd set.

Set 3 set out with some back and forth, ultimately leading to a 6-6 tie in the early going. That's when Centralia kicked it into over drive, as they took advantage of a Linn team who looked to be on very tired legs. A 7-1 run got Centralia fans on their feet as they started to sense what could be happening.

Centralia would keep the Bulldogs at arm's length for the rest of the match and eventually put away Linn 25-17 in the 3rd set and 25-21; 22-25; 25-17 to earn the 2026 championship.

Congratulations to the Lady Panthers on an extraordinary day. These two teams are both going to be serious threats in the postseason and squads that could be odds on favorites to bring home another trophy to their school.

Oh, and by the way, they also run it back on Tuesday night in a double dual. Man, I love this league.