BOZEMAN — Winning the first volleyball title in program history was sweet enough, but Jefferson coach Mike Majors felt a little extra pride Saturday at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse.
After Huntley Project forced a second, if-necessary, championship match, Majors' Panthers finally won their long-awaited Class B state title with a 17-25, 25-19, 25-20, 25-14 win in the second.
"Oh, just tremendous emotions," Majors said after the win. "But the sweetest victories of all are when you beat a club, the best program in the state. And we knew it wasn't going to be easy. It wasn't easy. That's a quality program."
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Jefferson's title is the 21st straight for a team from the Southern B division. For the Panthers, it was their first. Their foe, Huntley Project, has 16 plaques in its trophy case.
Jefferson, though, showed its championship mettle all tournament — and even dating back to last week's divisional tournament. After losing to Project in the Southern B undefeated semi, Jefferson rallied to win two championships there to carry the division's No. 1 seed into this week's state tournament.
Here, the Panthers swept their first two matches and then defeated Huntley Project in Friday's undefeated semifinal to give themselves the advantage on Saturday.
"We've faced adversity before and we've got a lot of gritty kids and they're scrappy and they showed it," Majors said. "But you tip your hat to Huntley. They made us give everything we have. I can't imagine if we had to play another set. I wouldn't have liked to against Huntley."
In the deciding championship match, Allison Zawacki put down 15 kills and Nevayah Weninger had 12. Weninger scored match point and — after a short wait for the officials to make the call — the celebration was on for the Panthers.
"It felt like I needed to fight back the tears. I felt the tears coming on, tears of joy," Majors said. "All teams that are here work their tails off, and we're just fortunate we're the ones that got it done against the best program, maybe in the whole state."
Project, which got 14 kills from Aeryn Akins, earned the second-place trophy. Shepherd, last year's state champion, placed third.
