COLUMBIANA — In a pair of Division IV volleyball sectional first-round matchups, it was the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference squads moving on to play more familiar foes.

The Western Reserve Blue Devils got past the Sebring Trojans, 3-0, and the Jackson-Milton Blue Jays got past the 2017 state runner-up St. Thomas Aquinas Knights 3-1 Tuesday night at Columbiana High School.

The field at Columbiana is packed with some strong teams such as Mineral Ridge, Wellsville, Heartland Christian and Springfield.

“I believe so too,” Western Reserve coach Jennifer Lorenzi said. “We’ve been talking about that for a while. The first five or so seeds are very talented teams. We’ve all battled all year.

“I feel like in that aspect everyone has a chance. You have to show up and play. Who’s going to do that? We have preparation ahead of us. I think it’s going to be a very exciting tournament.”

To get to that point, the Blue Devils (16-7) had to beat the Trojans for the third time this season. They were able to do that with scores of 25-13, 25-8, and 25-14, and they’ll face Springfield on Thursday.

Danielle Vuletich led Western Reserve with 10 kills and three blocks. Gianna Paris added 10 assists 12 points, and four aces.

“I think we put the ball in a good spot,” Lorenzi said. “We passed the ball where we needed to pass it. I think our setters set the ball really well tonight. Our hitters did what they needed to do. I think we served well tonight too which kept them out of sorts a bit.”

For Jackson-Milton (12-11), they got separation in the first set after it went back-and-forth through most of it, and won 25-17.

They dropped the second set 25-20 and never could get the match closer than five after the Knights opened up a 15-10 advantage.

“The second game we just kind of started out slow,” Jackson-Milton coach Sue Prozy said. “We had a lot of serve-receive errors. I think we missed four serves in that game. We were really just putting ourselves in a hole in the second game.”

The Blue Jays battled back in the third set after falling behind 7-3 as they held a 13-11 lead and then ballooned it out 18-11 which helped their cause as they took the third set, 25-21.

“Us taking that third set, it definitely gave us the momentum going into the fourth game, Prozy said. “Once we started picking up some of those tips, I think it kind of changed the game a little bit because they were definitely finding our holes with the tips. We moved a few people around and substituted. We were then able to rebound.”

Jackson-Milton’s ball-handling with digs and assists were huge throughout the sets as they had to work against 6-foot-2 Lourdes Myers.

“We tried to practice and prepare for her,” Prozy said. “She hits the ball really well. She’s like a dominant force. We just wanted to play the best defensive game that we could. We got our hands on a lot of those balls which helped us. We were able to make something out of them.”

The Blue Jays won the final set 25-16.

Grace McDevitt led the Blue Jays with 25 kills and four blocks with Alyssa Deak and Kailee Davis adding 21 points and 20 points respectfully. Julie Bogden added 30 digs.

Jackson-Milton will play Wellsville on Saturday, a team they lost to in three sets on Oct. 10.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Prozy said. They are a really nice defensive team. They have a few nice middle hitters that we struggled with when we played them last week. We have to fix that. We have to work on blocking. We have to work on making fewer mistakes. Dan McKinstry’s teams are always scrappy. I don’t know what he does, but they’re always scrappy.”