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Northlake Christian made a lot of unforced errors early on, but got going in the middle of third game and never let up. The Lady Wolverines captured a 25-27, 25-19, 25-19, 25-18 victory over The Dunham School in the quarterfinals of the state playoffs Thursday in the Pontchartrain Center.

“We’ve got a mixture of a senior-laden team with some sophomores,” Lady Wolverines’ coach Rowland Skinner said. “We kind of had to get in the flow of the match and once we did that, I thought we played very well.” The victory sent second-seeded NCS (28-10, 4-0) to the semifinals, which were played Friday. Dunham finishes its season at 21-19 overall and the Lady Tigers were 4-2 in district.

In the first game, Dunham played tough defense. Northlake Christian seemed to get some momentum.

With the score tied at 5-5, the Lady Wolverines tallied seven-consecutive points.

Hannah Miranda, who had 27 assists, 20 digs, 16 kills, three aces and three blocks, began the run with a kill. Angela Barrios collected one of her four aces, before Miranda dinked a shot to make it 8-5. Barrios followed with two-straight aces to make it 10-5, forcing a Dunham timeout.

The Lady Tigers were then called for a double-hit, followed by another Barrios ace to cap the spurt.

NCS continued to lead by seven at 21-14, but Dunham came back and caught the Lady Wolverines at 24-24, despite NCS holding a 24-21 advantage.

NCS went back on top 25-24, but the Lady Tigers scored the final three to take a one-game lead.

In the second game, the Lady Wolverines fought through mistakes in a close game. The Lady Wolverines erased a 13-10 deficit and the teams competed in a back-and-forth contest for much of the way.

With things knotted at 19-19, the Lady Wolverines got the final six points en route to the win.

The third contest seemed to be the key to the match and the Lady Wolverines were in a similar spot to last year’s final.

Last season, in the title match, NCS was down 16-9 in the fourth game, while trailing two games to one. They came back and won that game and then the next for the title.

On Thursday, Northlake Christian trailed 15-7 and it appeared Dunham had taken control and the Lady Wolverines would be down two games to one.

But true champions go down fighting and Northlake Christian wasn’t ready to have 2009 end.

NCS called on last year’s experience and fought back with seven-straight to make it 15-14. Dunham ended the run with a kill.

Miranda’s kill started another 7-0 spurt and the Lady Wolverines had the momentum and a 22-16 advantage. The Lady Tigers got a kill, but the Lady Wolverines pulled off the 25-19 victory.

NCS’ Monica Raymond, who logged 34 digs and 24 kills, said last year’s finals experience helped the team know they could come back.

“It gives us that precedence to look back to and be like, ‘you know what? We’ve done this before, we can do it again.’ So it always helps us to give us a little bit of hope,” Raymond said.

Raymond also said her team began to serve/receiver better.

“We started serving so tough that they couldn’t even run an offense,” Raymond said. “I think right about that time when we started getting our serves in and serving really tough, it kind of broke down their offense and I think why we started picking it up.”

The Lady Wolverines carried the momentum to the fourth game and jumped out to an 8-3 lead.

Dunham fought back to make it 10-9, but NCS extended it to 14-10.

The Lady Tigers fought back to trim it 14-13, but the Lady Wolverines pulled away with a 6-1 run and led 20-15 before winning the game 25-18 and advancing to the semifinals.

NCS’ Mary Wilson dished out 16 assists.

For Dunham, McKenzie Griffin had 18 assists, six digs and two aces. Caroline McKey added 16 kills and six digs, while Lindsey Deason blocked six shots.