CENTRAL — No matter how bad things got on Wednesday night, Daniel High School volleyball coach Joy Stewart never doubted her team. Not for a minute.

Having to claw its way out of a 2-1 hole against Riverside, Daniel turned the corner in a big way in the fourth game with a nine-point victory, which set the stage for a runaway demolition of the Warriors in the fifth game to vault the Lions to their first appearance in the State championship game since 2003 with the 3-2 come-from-behind victory.

Looking for their first state championship since the 1999 season, the No. 1 Lions (32-3) will take the court on Saturday at 4 p.m. at White Knoll High School in Lexington to face Bluffton, which last won State in 2007 and defeated Camden 3-1 on Wednesday night in the Lower State championship game.

And with the way the Lions closed out their win on Wednesday night, Stewart said she couldn’t imagine a better way to head into Lexington, as she struggled find the words to describe the win.

"I knew they were going to do this, they just took a hard way of doing it," Stewart said. "What a season they've had, and that to me is just icing. We're going to State."

The Lions controlled the better part of the first game of the night, as they never looked back after taking an 8-7 lead on a kill from Hayley Hoover on the way to the 25-18 win.

And after the Warriors won a tight 26-24 game and followed it with a 25-22 win in the third game, which they never trailed, to take control of the match, several Daniel players were hanging their heads.

But true to the form they’ve showed all season, that’s when the Lions decided to flip the switch and come to life.

“It was tough but I refused to go home without playing my heart out, and that's what I wanted to do,” Lions senior Sherece Smith said.

Smith did just that in the fourth game, recording four early kills to help Daniel out to a 7-1 edge, though Riverside came back as close as 11-10.

But the Lions eventually pulled away for the 25-16 win, which helped them take every last bit of momentum into the decisive fifth game.

With Hoover up to serve, Daniel jumped out to a 4-0 lead. Then coming to serve with a 5-1 lead, Sarah Beasley helped the Lions out to a 9-1 advantage on the way to the 15-5 victory, as a kill from Sarah Hughey capped the memorable comeback.

“After game three, we just got it together,” Hoover said. “We played not to lose at the beginning of the match, and toward the end we played to win.”

And with that dominant effort, the Lions punched their ticket to State.

Daniel 3, Riverside 2

RHS 18 26 25 16 5 — 2

DWD 25 24 22 25 15 — 3