The Lower Columbia College volleyball team opened the NWAC Championship tournament with a victory that will be talked about for a long time.

Down 2-1 in the match and then down 14-10 in the 5th and deciding set, LCC scored the final six points and pulled out a thrilling 3-2 victory over the Spokane Sasquatch to advance in the winners bracket on Thursday morning November 17th.

The Devils were dead.  Spokane had all the momentum in the deciding set before Kallie Schmit and company went on the match finishing run to stun the Bigfoot.

It was a match of dominating twists and turns. LCC opened the match with a 25-13 victory and they had all the momentum.  But Spokane came back to take control with back to back set victories 25-18 and 25-15.

The Devils showed great resolve by coming out and staying alive with a 25-9 win in set four, setting up the epic decider.

The 5th set went back and forth with LCC leading at the exchange.  But Bigfoot went on a run to take the 14-10 lead needing just one point to advance.  The Devils had other ideas and closed with an exciting run to pull out the victory.

"You have to stay mentally tough when you're down 14-10 in the final set", said head coach Carri Smith.  "Our players did not check out early and they showed the mental toughness it takes to win a match like that."

Schmit and Rachel Erickson had great matches for LCC, both with 16 kills each.  Haylee Savage had 40 assists and 11 digs.  Khloe Clark had 16 digs. Kylie Reinholdt had seven kills and five assists.

LCC had 13 service aces, including six from Erickson.

The Devils will need the rest of Thursday off after spending so much energy against Spokane.  LCC will take on Umpqua at 10 am on Friday November 18th. The Riverhawks rallied from two sets down to stun Bellevue 3-2.  Umpqua was the 4th seed in the South and pulled off the first big upset of the tourney, taking down the North champion Bulldogs.