CARROLLTON — Third-seeded Beaver Local and second-seeded River View entertained fans with a classic back-and-forth battle in their Division IV district championship volleyball match Thursday night at Carrollton High School.

When the dust settled, it was the three-time defending district champion Black Bears who emerged with an exhausting win over determined Beaver Local in four sets, 24-26, 27-25, 25-16 and 30-28.

The win sends River View (21-4) to the Pickerington Regional where they will play No. 1-seeded Meadowbrook in a regional semifinal at 6 p.m. Thursday at Pickerington North High School.

Beaver Local enjoyed a tremendous season and bowed out with a 22-3 mark.

“I couldn’t be more proud of our girls, I thought we played great,” said Beaver Local coach Sarah Lowe. “This is probably one of the top three or four seasons we’ve had and we’ve had some great runs.”

Beaver Local’s top stat leaders on the night included Eva McKnight (12 kills, 29 assists), Giada Willliams (eight kills, 31 assists) Sydney McNear (5 kills, 35 assists), Lily Schrieber (8 kills, 30 assists), Addie Thurik (five kills, 23 assists), Bria Boyd (10 assists) and Karsyn Bowyer (two kills, 9 assists).

Leading River View was All-Ohioan Haley Balo with match-best 23 kills, while Kelsie Smith had 47 assists, three aces and 36 digs, Layla Olinger had 17 kills, Lindyn Fry added 19 digs and 10 assists and Remi Lewis had three blocks. Balo has 424 kills on the season and is in the top 40 in the state (all divisions combined) in that statistic.

“She (Balo) is just a hammer,” said River View coach Rose Olinger. “She did great and Kelsie Smith is such a good defender, because they (the Beavers) had us out of system a lot.”

Beaver Local had the Black Bears scrambling in the first set as the Beavers controlled the tempo and broke from a 21-21 tie to outscore River View 5-3 and post a thrilling 26-24 win.

“It was awesome in the first set,” said Lowe. “The girls on the other team were hollering that we knew everything they were about to do. Our girls were as prepared as they could be tonight and they executed.”

River View’s Olinger agreed.

“They scouted us and I think that’s why we struggled so much in the first set,” she said. “Then it was just all hands on deck and everybody else was ready to go, distributing the ball offensively, which really helped us out.”

With momentum on Beaver Local’s side, the Beavers went out to as much as a six-point (19-13) lead in the second set, following a kill by senior Eva McKnight, and looked to be in control. But River View answered with a 12-6 run to tie things at 25-25 and tallied the final two points to cop an important 27-25 comeback win in the set.

“The second set we were able to get ourselves a lead, and we let them back into it, but both teams are very talented and we knew it was going to be back and forth,” said Lowe.

“We would not give up,” said Olinger. “Once we got our emotions back under control and we remembered to control our controllables, we would not let up.”

With momentum on its side, the Black Bears went on a 12-4 run in the third set to take a 19-10 lead and went on to post a 25-16 win.

“We got off to a bad start in that third set, so we definitely faltered there and ran it back a little bit at the end, but other than that, the other three sets were a point-for-point battle,” said Lowe.

Beaver Local impressively battled with River View in the fourth set. There were 13 different tie scores in the set, the last coming at 28-28. But with River View’s Linden Fry serving, the Black Bears tallied the final two points to win the set and match, 30-28, to advance.

“We played every ball to win,” said Olinger. “Our serve receive was consistent all night because they (the Beavers) are good servers.”

River View totaled 106 points, while Beaver Local had 95.

“It just came down to who was ahead on the scoreboard at the end and less errors, and tonight, River View was the better team, but we definitely will keep battling and fighting and come back next year,” said Lowe.

Lowe praised her eight graduating seniors for all of the success they’ve enjoyed in their four-year careers at Beaver Local.

“We have eight seniors and they are more like a family to me than words can say,” she said. “The leadership that they bring to every one of our players on our team is amazing. The knowledge they have for the game, the passion, the time that they put in is unbelievable. This group has been great and they battled hard all season and they’ve made it nothing but enjoyable.”