Sugar-Salem is back in the state tournament after a sweep of South Fremont in district final

SUGAR CITY – The Sugar-Salem Diggers are headed back to the state volleyball tournament after a three year absence after knocking off South Fremont 3-0 in the 4A District 6 tournament final Wednesday night.

It’s the first state tournament berth since 2021 when the Diggers rolled through the season 39-0 to win the state title.

Recent history belonged to South Fremont, which had won the last two district tournament titles and beat Sugar-Salem twice at last year’s tournament to end the Diggers’ season.

That carried over into this season when the Cougars beat Sugar-Salem 3-2 back in September.

But it was a different story this week.

The Diggers’ beat South Fremont to end the regular season and earn the top seed in the district tournament and then they beat the Cougars again on Monday in the tournament opener. That sent South Fremont into an elimination game against Teton earlier on Wednesday. They beat Teton 3-1.

In the finals match, Sugar-Salem (18-15) rolled to a 25-14 win in game one, then held off a late charge by the Cougars to win the second game 25-22, and then closed it out with a 25-16 win in the third.

Diggers’ coach Tasha Peterson, in her second season as head coach, said the team hasn’t always played its best at home, but she saw the team’s potential back in the summer.

“When we started summer ball and played some tournaments I saw we had a bunch of potential,” she said, noting a couple of key injuries may have set the team back early on.

“It’s just one of those seasons we had a lot of adversity, but I saw a lot of heart in these girls. They wanted it and had confidence in each other … they’ve overcome a lot.”

Senior Tasha Larsen led the Diggers with 18 kills in the championship match and Kelsey Palmer finished with seven kills while Brinley Bradshaw added six. Sarah Miller finished with 13 digs.

Lexxi Inns finished with nine kills for South Fremont and Jerzee Quayle and Elayne LeCheminant each had six kills.

The Cougars (14-17) can still advance to the state tournament. They will play a play-in game Saturday at Pocatello against the District 4 second-place team.