Stone Ridge Christian, Hilmar volleyball advance to NorCal championship matches.

The sleeves on Laura Hooker’s florescent green libero jersey look like they’ve been feasted on by moths.

“Look what she does to my jerseys,” jokes Stone Ridge Christian volleyball coach Ken Shaw.

Hooker then counts the holes. There are five holes on her right arm and another two on the left arm.

“Usually there is blood dripping from this arm,” Hooker says, pointing to her right elbow.

The Knights senior spent most of Saturday’s match diving on the floor, picking up balls to keep plays alive. It won’t be long before there are a few more holes in those sleeves. Hooker finished with 20 digs to help lead the No. 1 seeded Knights to a 25-18, 25-10, 25-15 win over No. 4 Redding Christian (29-4) in the Northern California Regional Division VI playoffs.

Stone Ridge Christian’s 30th win of the season propels the Knights (30-6) into the NorCal championship game on Tuesday in a rematch of the Sac-Joaquin Section championship game against Forest Lake Christian. The Knights will host the game at 7 p.m.

It’s SRC’s second time playing for the NorCal championship. The Knights lost to Woodland Christian in 2016. What’s different this time around?

“We’re ranked first,” Shaw said. “We have home field advantage. We have our fans and our girls are just passionate about it. They hung out all day together before the game.”

The Lions had a tough time scoring against the SRC defense. Redding Christian lacked the big put-away kills. Instead it was Hooker and Maartje Vander Dussen (20 digs) leading the defense.

“I love being able to set up my teammates so they can slaughter the ball,” Hooker said. “It’s fun being libero. I like the strategy of it and I like the ball handling.”

The Knights defenders help set up their hitters as Sadi Tucker finished with a team-high 12 kills. Sydney Shaw and Vander Dussen both added 10 kills. Shaw added 21 assists and 12 digs.

Brooke Wareham also shared the setting duties and finished with 17 assists.

“Are back row was great tonight,” Ken Shaw said. “Their passing made it easy for some smart sets. (Redding Christian) probably had the best blockers we’ve seen this year. We didn’t even set up our outside hitters too much tonight. We got a lot of our points on the right side.”

After becoming the first team in program history to win a section title, the Knights have an opportunity to win the school’s first NorCal championship.

“We didn’t have a lot of competition during the season so we’ve been looking forward to this all year to play these amazing teams,” Tucker said. “Either team we play, it’s going to be a battle. We’re going to have to come out and fight. We’ll have to go all out.”

Hilmar 3, University Prep 1 in Hilmar - The top-seeded Yellowjackets advanced to the Division IV NorCal championship on Tuesday.

Julia Gonsalves led the Hilmar defense with 30 digs. Mikela Labno finished with 19 kills and Emma Martin orchestrated the offense with 44 assists.

Hilmar (34-12) will face No. 2 Shasta (18-15) in the NorCal finals on Tuesday with a berth to the state championship on the line. The match is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

This story was originally published November 10, 2018 at 8:55 PM.