To reach the top of the mountain sometimes getting past the most difficult obstacle must occur.

Lafayette’s volleyball team did just that on Tuesday and is close to reaching that mountain top for the first time in program history. The Commodores defeated Lake Cormorant 3-1 (20-25, 25-13, 25-15, 25-14) to win the Class 5A North Half championship and advanced to the state championship match this weekend.

With the win, Lafayette completed a 4-0 sweep of the Gators this season. Prior to this season, Lake Cormorant had won the last eight meetings between the two teams dating back to the 2017 season.

Lake Cormorant grabbed the early lead after edging the Commodores in the opening set. From there Lafayette’s players relied on their previous success against the defending 5A champions this year and never panicked.

“We made a lot of unforced errors in the first set and it was good to know that it was errors on our side,” said Lafayette head coach Zoe Storck said. “Once we cleaned that up, went back to our game we had no problems.”

The Commodores took charge with a dominant second set performance, closing the set out with a 20-8 run after it was tied at 5-all. Lake Cormorant found themselves in a hole again in the third set and put pressure on Lafayette with a mini-rally midway through, but the Commodores responded for the 2-1 lead.

Lake Cormorant did not wilt after dropping two straight sets, jumping out to a 6-0 lead in the fourth set. Once again, Lafayette responded to clinch the match.

“I’m really proud of them and just their ability to fight back,” Storck said. “It helps that we’ve been put in situations like that several times this year and been able to come back. They knew they had it in their back pocket and just to kind of get right there in the beginning of the set and they rolled on from there.”

Lafayette will play Vancleave for the MHSAA Class 5A state championship at 6 p.m. at Clinton High School on Saturday.