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Five kills in an eight-point span Tuesday left Sophia Overholt feeling all kinds of grateful.

Her Polk County teammates felt the same way.

“She came off the court after that game and was like, ‘I’m so glad to be back,’” recalled Polk County head coach Molly Hill. “It’s just exciting to have things like that happening.”

The Wolverines certainly had reason to be excited at evening’s end Tuesday as Polk County began defense of its state 1A volleyball title with a home sweep of Highlands in the first round of the 2024 playoffs.

The Wolverines (17-3) rolled to a 25-10, 25-10, 25-10 victory, advancing to a second-round meeting Thursday with Robbinsville. The Knights (17-9) topped Rosman 3-1 in their opening-round encounter.

Highlands (8-16) ultimately did not have enough firepower to match Polk County, who trailed by more than a point just once in the match. That came in a 3-1 deficit to open the third set, which the Wolverines quickly erased with eight straight points, an Overholt serve catching the top of the net and trickling over to complete the run.

Controlling the match enabled Polk to experiment with some tempo changes as well as attacks that the Wolverines may need later in the postseason.

“It was a little slow, but I think that as we progress, we’re going to keep getting faster and better,” Hill said. “We saw some really good things tonight, and I challenged them to try to do things and run things that we’re going to need later. And, really, just work on our fast offense.

“I challenged Charley (Dusenbury) a bit with the consistency of her setting, so it was good. I was excited for them.”

Dusenbury finished with 38 assists, 12 digs and three aces, with Overholt recording 16 kills, 12 digs and four aces. Mia Bradley had 11 kills while Morgan Yoder had seven kills.

Kylie Lewis added six kills, with Hayden Blackwell recording 11 digs.