CALEDONIA — Once the Caledonia High volleyball team settled into the rhythm of Tuesday evening’s MHSAA Class 4A second-round postseason match against West Lauderdale, the defending state champion Cavaliers got the job done.

Caledonia (28-10-1) trailed for nearly the entirety of the first set and took some time getting going in the second before dominating the third and holding off the Knights (25-17) in the fourth to advance to the quarterfinals on Thursday.

“We just really needed to dig deep,” Caledonia head coach Samantha Brooks said. “We struggled with their servers. They had some really good servers who could mix it up, and we had trouble reading it. But we cleaned that up and made playable passes. In the first set, we didn’t put the ball away like we can, and we really needed our defense to up their game.”

After the Cavaliers rallied to tie the first set at 14 points apiece, West Lauderdale reeled off six straight points to take the lead for good. Facing set point, junior Mackenzie Rushing delivered three consecutive service aces to keep Caledonia alive before the Knights closed it out.

Rushing’s serving came up big again in the second set — she poured in two more aces to help spark an 8-0 run that turned a 7-6 Cavaliers deficit into a 14-7 lead. Senior setter Sophie Johnson helped make life easier for Caledonia’s big swingers, including senior Brianna Holliman and junior Ivyaan Taylor.

“Coach Brooks always tells me to set my hitters on the net more so they can kill it,” Johnson said. “I tried my best to do that.”

The Cavaliers took the first seven points of the third set and later went on a 9-0 run to bring up set point. Taylor, Caledonia’s tallest player at 6 feet, 2 inches, began to take over down the stretch and direct her attacks into open spaces.

On the defensive end, senior libero Emma McKee helped limit West Lauderdale’s attackers and get things started for the Cavaliers’ offense.

“We had to be really mentally tough,” McKee said. “It was really just trying to focus on serve-receive. We just needed to make a good, playable pass, and when their hitters were hitting, it was about reading the ball and reacting.”

The fourth set started much like the third, with Caledonia jumping out to leads of 5-1 and 10-4, but this time the Knights fought back and briefly took a 14-13 lead. The hosts quickly jumped back in front and clinched the victory on a West Lauderdale service error.

The Cavaliers will be at Newton County, which sports an impressive 30-4 record, in Thursday’s quarterfinals. The Cougars upset Tishomingo County on the road in five sets Tuesday to advance, so Caledonia’s path to hanging another banner will be anything but smooth.

“This right here was a good foundation for us going forward,” Brooks said. “This type of competitiveness, this type of match is going to help us mentally to continue to play these tougher teams as we play through the playoffs.”