LADY PANTHERS Karah Fisher (left), Jessica Blakeman (2) and Natalie Sluga are in shock after Vanden ended Benicia’s run of five consecutive SCAC championships.

The queen is dead. All hail the Vanden Lady Vikings.

Benicia High’s varsity volleyball team, which reigned over the Solano County Athletic Conference for five consecutive seasons, was essentially dethroned Tuesday after a 25-17, 18-25, 25-11, 25-13 loss to the Lady Vikings on Senior Night at Vanden High. The Lady Vikings, who last won a SCAC title in 2010, improved to 13-1 in conference play and can clinch the outright championship with a match against Fairfield (2-12 SCAC) in Thursday night’s regular-season finale. Benicia dropped to 12-2 in the SCAC and lost 2-of-3 matches to Vanden this year.

“It’s hard to deal with,” said Benicia senior Semele Hargis. “We really wanted to win.”

“We’re definitely bummed,” senior Ramona Glatzel added. “You could tell that (Vanden) really wanted it. They always do better in their own gym and playing on their Senior Night was a definite disadvantage for us.”

The Lady Panthers (14-3 overall) got off to a strong start and built an early 16-11 lead in the opening set, but Vanden’s Miranda Marshall ripped a kill to end Benicia’s momentum and promptly rolled off 13 straight service points as the Lady Vikings pulled away for the win.

Benicia regrouped in the second set and stormed to a 14-9 lead. A couple of kills from senior Jessica Blakeman, a nice serve by senior Taylor Lewis and a tip by Karah Fisher made it 19-14, and a block and an ace by Emily Maher helped the Lady Panthers even the match at one set each.

But Benicia would never lead again. Vanden jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the third set and led 7-5 before running off eight consecutive points to take command. Kills by Emily Casner, Onnie Walker and Miranda Marshall pushed the lead to 23-10, putting Benicia’s back to the wall.

“I felt like we had the momentum going into that third set but we had a lot of unforced errors and were messing up on our part,” Hargis said. “We weren’t finishing, and that’s been a reoccurring problem for our team.”

“The momentum changed really quick,” Glatzel said. “We didn’t play well at all in that third set.”

It didn’t get much better for the Lady Panthers in the fourth set. Tied 3-3, Vanden capitalized on some more Benicia errors and went on a 10-2 run to take command again. The Lady Vikings tightened up on defense and seemed to dig out every vicious spike Blakeman could throw at them. Benicia head coach Jamie Hadenfeldt was issued a red card after arguing a call with the referees, and once Vanden built a 21-9 lead, the balance of power in the SCAC was with the Lady Vikings.

“When they had really good points, we just couldn’t match them,” Hargis said. “We kept losing our leads and would commit error after error. We weren’t executing.”

Blakeman finished with 11 kills, six digs and two blocks. Sara McBride and Reagan Lewis each added six kills, Hargis had five kills, Glatzel finished with 11 digs, and Maher had three aces.

Benicia wraps up SCAC play Thursday at American Canyon and will take part in the San Ramon Tournament this Saturday. The Lady Panthers were obviously disappointed with the loss to Vanden but are looking forward to redeeming themselves in the upcoming Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs.

“I feel like we could have done better,” Glatzel said. “We didn’t have the right mentality and couldn’t stop making errors.”

“It definitely feels like we could have done a lot more, but we have to be good sports about it,” Hargis said. “It would feel good to at least go as far as we’ve ever gone in the playoffs.”

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