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Now we know what Polk County’s volleyball team decided to dress as for Halloween.

West Regional champions.

Same as last year, but why change a good thing?

The Wolverines are heading back to the 1A state championship match, treating themselves to that trip with a convincing 25-15, 25-15, 25-19 Halloween victory Thursday over Cherokee on the Braves’ home court.

Polk County (21-3) will attempt to earn back-to-back state titles on Saturday, facing Perquimans (26-1) in the championship match at 1:30 p.m. in Reynolds Coliseum on the North Carolina State campus. Perquimans swept Falls Lake Academy in the East Regional final to set up the first 1A final between two public schools since 2015.

On its biggest stage of the season, Polk delivered its best performance. From the outset, the Wolverines were everything they weren’t in Tuesday’s quarterfinal win at Highland Tech – calm, collected, confident. Polk never trailed by more than two points at any time and only once allowed Cherokee (25-2) to score more than three points in any run. The Wolverines focused on stopping Brave sophomore standout Joscelyn Stamper and largely kept both her and senior Alexis Davis, the team’s top two hitters, from affecting the outcome.

“It doesn’t feel real, but I’m so happy for our team,” said senior Mia Bradley. “Honestly, we’ve worked hard for it.

“I think we mentally prepared ourselves. We’ve been ready. We knew this was going to be a crazy environment coming up here. I think our preparation helped us stay calm throughout the entire game.”

Many players on the court were also present last season when Polk County defeated Cherokee in the 1A quarterfinals. That match proved Polk’s biggest challenge on its march to its first state title. The Wolverines got off the bus Thursday focused on keeping the Braves from posing an even bigger threat in the rematch.

“I kept saying to them, you should have so much confidence,” said Polk County head coach Molly Hill, who will coach in her third state final in 11 seasons. “We’ve done this before. We’ve been here before. You know what to expect.

“We prepared, we watched film, we talked to people. They knew what to do and we came out here and executed that.”

Polk jumped out to a 6-2 lead in the opening set, then put together a 10-4 run to take a 20-10 advantage. Cherokee climbed back to within 22-15 before the Wolverines closed the set on a Kylie Lewis kill, Morgan Yoder ace and Bradley kill.

Set two began in the same manner – Polk opened a 6-2 advantage and quickly extended that to 15-5. Down 16-6, Cherokee pulled within five on a Stamper service run and appeared to be building some momentum as well as volume from its large crowd. But Sophia Overholt ended the spell with a kill, and the Braves got no closer, a Cherokee error ending the second set.

The Braves kept the third set much tighter, finally beginning to get its attack flowing. But Polk began to take charge midway through the set, putting together a run to grab an 18-10 lead on a Bradley kill. A Cherokee timeout did little to slow the Wolverines’ momentum, and Yoder teed up Polk’s celebration by bashing a Davis hit to the floor on match point.

“We knew coming in that we were going to have to shut (Stamper) down, and that’s who they were going to go to every chance they had,” Hill said. “I really felt like we kept that under control when she was on front row and on back row when they were setting her.

“That calmness, I feel like it was because we prepared so much and talked about what we needed to do.”

Bradley finished with 13 kills and 11 digs, with Yoder adding 11 kills and seven digs and Overholt posting ten kills and 23 digs. Lewis finished with seven kills.

Hayden Blackwell had 14 digs, while Charley Dusenbury had 35 assists and eight digs. Lexi Beiler added three aces and six digs.

Polk County will have little time to enjoy its regional championship – the Wolverines plan to board a bus mid-morning Friday and head for Raleigh, where they hope to be celebrating once again on Saturday afternoon.

“To have the opportunity to possibly win again, that’s been our goal since day one of this season,” Hill said. “These seniors have worked so hard for this. They deserve this. I’m excited. Now we’ve got to go out there and get it done.”