KENNETT, Mo. -- This group of Bearcat seniors have been looking forward to this day for years. Now it's here, and it'll be awhile before those smiles leave their faces.
Pushed at times, Dexter stayed in control of the match from start to finish and beat Perryville 25-16, 25-21 on Tuesday to repeat as MSHSAA Class 3 District 1 champions.
"I am just so proud of my team," Dexter senior Addie Kruse said. "We've been looking forward to this, the seniors have been looking forward to this since freshman year. I am just excited. Tomorrow is going to be a really good day to be a Dexter Bearcat. We are going to walk through the halls and I know our town is really proud of us, our school is proud of us and I am proud of everyone on my team."
Perryville (18-12-1), which beat Notre Dame for the first time this season in an emotional semifinal upset, traded points with Dexter (26-4-2) early in the opening set. With Dexter up 6-5, Kruse put down one of her five kills to start a 6-1 run. She added a tip during the run and Dexter also got two points off Perryville errors.
The Pirates got as close as three points when Dexter put together a second small run to go ahead 18-11.
Kruse was again featured as she finished the stretch with a kill and one of her team-leading 4 1/2 blocks, also a season high.
"We all stepped up really big tonight. It was just unreal. Everyone was hitting the ball, we were on and we took care of business in two sets," Kruse said.
Perryville didn't put together better than a two-point run down the stretch and Dexter's Blair Rogers finished the set with a kill.
Dexter led 10-5 in the second set after Kruse finished yet another run with a kill and a block.
Perryville, though, got back-to-back blocks from Brooke Buerck, a kill from Sydney Spears and another block by Camryn Baer to tie the set at 13.
It was then that Dexter took its only timeout of the match.
"We stopped being aggressive and then we played defense, so I said we had to get back and start hitting again and be aggressive," Dexter coach Carmen Morgan said. "We own the net, that's what we say, we own the net. So in other words, you have to come through us and get across."
The Bearcats came out of the break and Hannah Thurmon got one of her team-leading 13 kills to retake the lead.
"You can't stop her. You just have to get in her face and hope she makes a mistake," Perryville coach Cindy Cissell said.
The Dexter offense continued to flow through Thurmon late and the senior middle hitter closed the match with four more kills.
"We are so good at pushing through. We know if we lose a point, we get it right back," Kruse said. "We had to come back to the middle, just calm down and relax. That was our big thing tonight. If we came out and we were tense, then it wasn't going to go our way. We had to come in the middle, all the seniors we stepped up and we were like, 'Guys we have to talk more, we have to move our feet.' I think we played off each other really well tonight."
Things were still in doubt late, though, as Baer, who finished with eight kills and two blocks, put down a kill to cut Dexter's lead to 22-21.
Dexter took the serve and Bailee Williams, who finished with 26 assists and three kills, passed to Thurmon who drilled a spike off the block. After Perryville hit into the net, Dexter went right back to Thurmon and she finished the game.
"I was ready to hit the ball, I knew I had to take my part in it and get the job done. It ended up coming all together and we all did our part," Thurmon said. "I knew going in I was like, 'I want this ball, I want to end it.' I probably could have hit it harder, but I hit it pretty hard."
Maci Hotop added five kills and a block for Perryville, which will lose five seniors in Hotop, Sophie Bollinger, Taylor Weber, Buerck and Hannah Layton.
"Dexter is a powerful team. It was going to take everything, no mistakes whatsoever, and teams make mistakes. You can't do that against a team like Dexter," Cissell said. "I couldn't be more proud of these girls. They fought tooth and nail to the end and I couldn't ask for anything more than that."
Maycie Martin added seven kills for Dexter, two shy of her season best. Megan Trout had seven digs and Natalie Sitzes got six.
Dexter will play the District 3 winner, to be decided Wednesday, on Saturday at Rosati-Kain in St. Louis. Times will be announced later this week.