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Levi Butler and his St. Cloud teammates will be looking to duplicate their Orange Belt Conference tournament victory from April 12 and win a District 10 championship on Thursday. FILE PHOTO
By Thamely Santos
For the News-Gazette
Tuesday night, at the District 10 boys volleyball district tournament semifinals at St. Cloud, the host Bulldogs and Poinciana displayed a tremendous amount of talent, winning matches to get them to Thursday's championship game.
The Poinciana Eagles faced the Celebration Storm. Celebration, the defending district champs, put up a good fight but to no prevail as Poinciana dominated the Storm in three sets. In set three, Celebration was down 12-6 and just could not recover. The Eagles used all of the tools in their toolbox to snag this win. They distributed the ball to their pins and stayed aggressive throughout the match. Hitter Alan Reyes, was a weapon who used an array of different shots to reach their goal. Getting the setter out of system, placing the ball in deep corners, backrow attacks, and even running a play through the middle. #11 Jr. Lucas Adkins sealed the fate for the Eagles with a roll shot to the donut on Celebrations side of the net, allowing the Eagles to advance.
Like in the Orange Belt Conference tournament three weeks ago, top-seeded St. Cloud went head-to-head with rival the Harmony Longhorns. And like that other meeting, it was the Bulldogs winning, 25-23, 23-25, 25-14, 25-19. The Bulldogs took advantage of all of their strengths, pushing balls to the deep corners, tipping over the block, and handling overpasses. The liberos on both teams took control of the back row. St. Cloud's Nicholas Burzotta and Will Sutphen were an unstoppable force, with Nicholas setting for Will to destroy. Enrique Soto's fourth-set kill put an end to match.
It will be Poinciana traveling back to St. Cloud Thursday at 6 p.m. to decide the district champion.
