For the second year in a row, the Stillwater volleyball team will play in the state tournament.

But this year's tournament appearance will be a first for Ponies middle blocker Maddie Whittington. The junior suffered a torn ACL last season and never made it onto the Xcel Energy Center court.

"It was really hard for me last year," Whittington admitted. "I wanted it for my team, but there was nothing I could physically do.

"This year, I really, really hoped I could bring the things that I learned from the bench onto the court."

She will get that chance, but it was not easy as Stillwater claimed the Class 3A, Section 4 title over North St. Paul at St. Paul Washington Technology Magnet School Thursday. The Ponies, who won in three straight sets when the two teams met Oct. 12, were strung out to five sets in this contest before beating the Polars 17-25, 25-20, 25-15, 19-25, 15-5.

"We made it a little hairy there — that was close," Stillwater coach Bob Fisher said after Thursday's match. "[North St. Paul] was really scrappy, and they kept us out of system for much of the match."

Whittington, who has verbally committed to Illinois, said she learned more technical aspects of the game from watching Stillwater's state tournament run last season.

"[I learned] how to hit certain shots better, and I learned a lot about court vision," she explained. "But I also learned you have to keep your energy the entire match.

"Without your energy, you're not half the team you can be," she said.

And she used some of that energy as Stillwater (20-6) needed her 17 kills and seven blocks — combined with 18 kills and three blocks by fellow middle blocker Reece Koehler — to earn the victory.

Koehler, who had five kills and a block in the decisive fifth set, was excited to get the opportunity to play in the state tournament again. She was also happy that Whittington would get her first chance to play there.

"I'm super excited and thrilled to be a part of that again," Koehler said. "It was a bummer not having [Whittington] there.

"But today she was able to get some revenge on the court."

Both Whittington, who stands 6-foot-4, and Koehler, who is 6-2, collected kills by going over and sometimes through North St. Paul blocks.

"You have to pick your poison against those two," Fisher said. "If we can keep feeding those middles, we're tough to beat.

"When we can do that, it opens up the outsides for our hitters. But when we can't do that, we really have to work for our points," he said.

That strategy made sense because the Polars lost senior middle hitter Talli Martinez to a season-ending ACL injury. As a result, North St. Paul coach Stephanie Blanda had just one player taller than 5-10 on the court.

"We tried to move our offense around, so we weren't hitting right down the middle — to make them move and wear them down," Blanda said. "We also adjusted a little bit so they couldn't attack the right back, where our setter was."

The Polars were effective at tracking down attack attempts and keeping the ball in play.

"We have some really scrappy, scrappy players," Blanda said. "Our libero, Jenna Rubbelke, is amazing and Selena Rodriguez is right up there in digs as well.

Rodriguez, a senior, also finished with 18 kills to lead North St. Paul (24-3).

That strategy worked in the first set as the Polars forced a number of Stillwater errors to outscore the Ponies 12-4 after playing to a 13-13 tie.

In the second set Stillwater's middle blockers got rolling and combined for four blocks in a 25-20 win; then Whittington had eight kills in the third set as the Ponies won 25-15.

But in the fourth set North St. Paul again managed to knock Stillwater out of system, and the errors the Polars caused lifted them to a 9-1 finish and a come-from-behind 25-19 victory to force a decisive fifth set.

In that set Koehler was the star thanks to three kills and a block as part of a 10-1 finish.

"We couldn't have done it without our passers and without our setter, Olivia Walsh," Koehler said. "The passing was dead-on, and I don't remember talking to 'Liv' about a set even once."

Whittington agreed, adding, "As the setter, Olivia is everything to me — I could not be half the player I am without her. She gets me going, and she makes amazing plays to get everybody going." 

North St. Paul, which had played practically error-free in the first four sets, made several mistakes in that decisive run.

"We just couldn't pull it back together," Blanda said. "We just weren't placing shots as well as we could.

"We fell apart a little bit."

Last season, Stillwater entered the state tournament as the No. 7-seed, losing in the first round to eventual Class 3A title-winner, Lakeville North. The remainder of the bracket will be completed this weekend.