There’ll be a Saturday morning showdown at the North White volleyball sectional.

Class A No. 8 ranked Pioneer and West Central both won their first-round matches Thursday night to advance to Saturday’s 11 a.m. semifinal. Tri-County and South Newton will square off in the 12:30 p.m. semifinal. The title match is set for 4:30 p.m.

“[West Central is] a scary team in that sectional. They have a lot of seniors,” Pioneer coach Rod Nies said. “It’s come down to whoever wins this game wins the sectional for the last four or five years, I believe. It’s one of those things where it’s whoever brings their ‘A’ game.

“If we get past them it’ll probably end up being against Tri-County, once again another pretty decent team.”

Pioneer 3, N. White 0

The three-time defending sectional champion Panthers started the defense of their title with a 25-11, 25-10, 25-13 win over the hosts in the night’s second match.

Cortney Hanson had 26 assists and four aces for Pioneer (24-9). Marissa Centers had seven kills, Kelsey Williams added five and Hillary Sharp added three. Ashley Gerlach contributed five kills, four blocks and three aces, and Kattie Lee had four kills and three blocks. Tori Cole led in digs with eight.

“My girls, they came to play [Thursday night],” Nies said. “They were very focused, extremely focused. The intensity was there. We kept on them with our jump serves and that was good to see.

“We’re starting to come around. I think I’ve got a good rotation where we’ve got quite a few good hitters in the front row at all times. It all seems to be coming together, I hope anyway.”

W. Central 3, Caston 0

West Central started the night off with a 25-17, 25-12, 25-11 win over Caston to end the Comets’ season.

The Comets (6-24) had to settle with six wins this season, which is four more than they finished with last year.

“I thought we played well,” Caston coach Heather Schuller said. “We did some things we needed to do to play with them. We just weren’t able to overcome.

“We played with them and had some good long rallies, but they always seemed to tip it to the right spot out of our reach or caught us off guard. It was a good game, probably a better game than the score indicates.”

Haley Markley had nine digs for Caston, and Megan Powell and Emily Douglass added four apiece. Brittney Offenberger floored four kills and Misty Gearhart added two. Gearhart also had two blocks. Holly Kingery dished out three assists and Kelsey Moss added two.

“We have only two seniors [Powell and Moss] that we’re going to lose, and they’re a big part of what we did, but at the same time we had four spots filled by underclassmen who learned a lot this year,” Schuller said. “They improved their skill and got a lot better, and next year we’ll build on that and hopefully do even better things.

“It’s disappointing for our seniors, but at the same time they saw a lot of improvement this year and without their leadership, [the four-match improvement] would not have been possible.”

Rylie Pfledderer had 21 assists and three aces for West Central (24-5). Riley Cervenka had 10 kills, Makenna Hamilton added six and Carlee Davis five. Hamilton added three blocks.

North Newton Sectional

Winamac 3, Boone Grove 0

The defending champion Warriors opened the sectional with a 25-21, 25-20, 25-12 win over the Wolves in Class 2A action.

Winamac (27-6) will face Culver in the 11 a.m. semifinal Saturday. Hebron faces North Judson in the 12:30 p.m. semifinal. The final is at 6 o’clock.

Allie DeFries had 11 kills, Emily Paulsen added 10 and Katy Anspach six for the Warriors. Sarah Redweik collected 27 assists and three kills. Rachael Franko posted 11 digs, six blocks and four kills. Sarah Doty, Erin Knorr and Marissa Stelly each had nine digs. Doty added three aces. Paulsen had seven blocks and Anspach added three.

“Emily Paulsen played a really good game,” Winamac coach Cathy DeFries said. “She really stepped up, her and Katy Anspach. We tried to throw off their defense quite a bit. We’ve got to have contributions from those two, and Rachael Franko, to consistently play at a high level. The focus can’t always be on Allie. Emily did a great job of drawing the defenders and the block off of Allie, and when we went to Allie she was wide open.”

Culver knocked off North Newton in four games in the night’s opener.

“I’m glad to be playing Culver because we’ve played them twice already and we know their team,” Cathy DeFries said. “They’ve improved a lot. They beat North Newton, which I did not expect at all. We’re gonna have to play a smart game, play well.”

Beau Wicker compiled this roundup.