The girls from Chautauqua Lake and Harley-Allendale Columbia faced that times 100 on Friday night at Hamburg High School.

Tied at two sets apiece in the best-of-five Class D Far West Regional, the Thunderbirds and Wolves were tied 10-10 in the first-to-15 fifth set.

That’s when Harley-Allendale Columbia’s Tori Colosimo took over.

After Chautauqua Lake hit a spike long to give service back to the Wolves, Colosimo put down kills on four of the final five points, including the winner down the line as Harley-Allendale Columbia earned its first trip to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association final four with an 18-25, 25-11, 25-17, 11-25, 15-11 defeat of the Thunderbirds.

Thunderbirds’ Hannah Group attempts a spike while Wolves’ Tori Colosimo goes up for a block. OBSERVER Photo by Valory S. Isaacson

“I’m still kind of in shock. We didn’t play our best last night,” said Harley-Allendale Columbia head coach Amy Colosimo, whose Wolves beat Pavilion on Thursday night in Section V’s overall Class D final. “All I wanted was to come out and play well … to play the way that they know how to play.”

It marked the second straight year Chautauqua Lake won a Section VI championship before losing to the Rochester-area champion in the regionals. Last year Pavilion ended the Thunderbirds’ season.

“When it’s so close, of course, it’s a little bit hard to see it slip away,” Chautauqua Lake head coach Joanne Meadows said, “but at the same time it’s so much better of a feeling than last year because these kids just played with heart and like they know they can.”

The Wolves led 2-0 early in the final set before they hit a spike that appeared to go long and would’ve given service to Chautauqua Lake. But the Thunderbirds, with their season and a trip to the state tournament hanging in the balance, stopped play and told the head referee that they tipped the ball at the net, giving Harley-Allendale Columbia a 3-0 lead.

“I want them to make their honor calls. If we’re going to win a game, I want to win because we’ve played it fairly, not because of some call that somebody missed when there is so much going on,” Meadows said. ” … That is something we tell them all the time, ‘If you touch the ball, even if nobody sees it, make the call. If the ball is in, even if nobody sees it, make the call.”

Chautauqua Lake’s Ava Olson sets a pass during the Far West Regional against Harley-Allendale Columbia on Friday at Hamburg High School. OBSERVER Photo by Valory S. Isaacson

Chautauqua Lake battled back to tie the set at 7-all, 9-all and 10-all before handing service back to the Wolves. That’s when Colosimo hit the final four of her team-leading 12 kills to send her team to next weekend’s final four at Cool Insuring Arena in Glens Falls.

“It was really hard to turn it around, but 15 points is all it took,” Coach Colosimo said. “We had to come out hard. They completely reset their mentality and believed in themselves again.”

The night started off on the right foot for the Thunderbirds, who led 16-13 in the first set before pulling away for a 25-18 victory.

“I knew that they hadn’t lost a game all year and I think they only lost five sets all year,” Meadows said. “I knew they were going to come back and it wasn’t over after the first one.”

But Harley-Allendale Columbia didn’t knock off defending-champion Pavilion on Thursday night to go quietly in Hamburg. The Wolves took service back leading 13-8 in the second set and Zora Scannell-Rooks rattled off 11 straight points to give her team a 24-8 lead.

“When she’s tuned in, it’s her serve,” Coach Colosimo said. “Although she’s only a freshman, she’s really, really smart. She has a really good volleyball IQ.”

Scannell-Rooks’ final serve went into the net, but three points later, Chautauqua Lake served into the net to hand the set to Harley-Allendale Columbia and even the match.

The Wolves dominated the third set and looked like they were well on their way to the eastern part of the state, but the Thunderbirds rallied in the fourth set.

“I’m so proud of my kids because they were starting to look bad in those two sets,” Meadows said. “Just the fact that those kids never quit at all, I can’t ask for anything more than everything that they gave out there.”

With Brynn Engdahl on the service line, Chautauqua Lake rattled off five straight points to go up 18-7. Eventually the Thunderbirds tied the match when Hannah Group sent a ball over the net that was not handled cleanly by Harley-Allendale Columbia.

“You end with a little bit of momentum and that momentum can carry through into the next set,” Meadows said. “I was hoping the momentum from that fourth one was going to carry us through in the fifth.”

But the winner-take-all fifth set went the Wolves’ way with Colosimo’s dominating finish.

“They were the most important at the end when it was getting close,” Coach Colosimo said. “We needed that.”

While the Thunderbirds graduate seven seniors including Group, Jenna Waters, Jenna Harle, Tatem Zemcik, Mallory Morrison, Alexandra Reyda and Anyah Carson, Meadows insists that she and her team will be back next year.

“I have seven seniors this year and they are fantastic players … and even more they are fantastic people. It always hurts to lose them a little bit,” Meadows said. “Fortunately, we never focus on just being a team at Chautauqua Lake, we focus on being a program.

“I think the program will come through. … They have a tradition of winning and they know what it means to put the time in to win,” Meadows added. ” … We’ll be back.”

NOTES: Group had 14 kills and seven digs; Ava Olson had 19 digs, 13 assists and six kills; Morrison had 15 assists, eight digs, four kills and two aces; Waters had 25 digs; and Engdahl had 23 digs, three kills and two aces for the Thunderbirds. … Colosimo had 24 digs, 19 assists, a block and an ace to go along with her 12 kills; Catherine Alexis had eight kills and 22 digs; and Izzy Martino had eight kills and four blocks for the Wolves.