WOODLAND, Mo. -- Bloomfield coach Haley Silman is breaking out the flamingo jacket.
The jacket is about as loud as jackets go, colorful and flamboyant and perfect for any Jimmy Buffet concert.
It belongs to a student, the superintendent's son in fact. He wore it to school one day. Silman is an avid flamingo fan. She has them all over her classroom and after seeing the jacket she told her superintendent that she needed to wear it at some point during the season. So Silman promised her team that if the Wildcats made it to the Stoddard County Activities Association Tournament final, she'd wear the jacket.
Twenty-four hours away from a potential jacket match, Bloomfield played its best game of the season to beat Advance 25-22, 25-21 in the semifinals.
Silman told her team in the postgame huddle that she'd wear the jacket and she got a celebration up there with any kill celebration.
"I couldn't have asked for anything better. We didn't quit, even when we got down we didn't quit," Silman said. "We just kept going. We would shake off whatever and our goal was to get the next point and that is just what we did and we just kept picking away at it. We were talking, moving, hitting the ball. I couldn't ask for a better team right there."
Bloomfield (22-3) will play four-time defending tournament champion and top seed Dexter for the SCAA championship Friday at 8 p.m. Advance (20-5-1) will face Bernie in the third-place game.
"We have to play just like this. We have to come out strong. Dexter has some great defense, great hitters. We just have to be on our game and if we do that, I feel like we can compete and maybe pull it out tomorrow," Silman said.
Communication has been a sticking point for Bloomfield all season, good and bad. When the girls are talking, it is the catalyst that gets everything clicking. When they're quiet every facet of their play suffers.
"We talked so much and it helps us a lot and I'm really proud of us for doing that. Talking is our main thing and we did it so well tonight. That's what helped us get point after point," said Bloomfield's Bailey Below, who finished with nine kills, eight digs and three aces.
Below crystallized what talking can do for Bloomfield when she did something nobody on the team has done this season.
With Bloomfield leading 9-8 in the second set, the Wildcats were in the middle of what would become the longest rally of the match.
After several Hornet attacks were dug up, Advance tried for a tip. Below, spotted in the back left corner, dove flat out and stretched her hand flat across the floor, palm down, and barely under the volleyball for a pancake save. It brought the Bloomfield bench to their feet and sent Silman jumping up and down, fists clenched hoping the Wildcats would reward the highlight play by just getting the volleyball over the net.
"We have been waiting for someone to do a pancake all season and it was a beautiful pancake," Silman said.
Bloomfield got the ball over, and soon the Hornets sent a kill wide. Then the Wildcats charged Below to celebrate and laugh about what she'd just done.
"It was the first time I've done that. I'm not really the best at defense usually, I wouldn't say, it was pretty epic. I'm pretty proud of it," Below said. "We've tried practicing it some, but it doesn't go naturally. It has to be in the moment for you to go and it was definitely instincts.
"Nobody really gets pancakes. It was a pretty big deal."
Bloomfield held onto its narrow lead for the rest of the match.
Advance rattled off four straight kills, including three by Roz Schrader, to cut the lead to 21-20, but a passing error gave the Wildcats the serve back.
Below soon drilled a kill off the block and then she blocked a tip for match point.
"They know that Bloomfield wanted it and Bloomfield played probably the best game they've played all year, and kudos to them. We just didn't want it as much as them and the girls feel the same way," Advance coach Erin Hoffman said. "We were giving them too many opportunities. Too many missed shots. "
Advance led the first set 6-2, but Bloomfield rallied to tie the game at 8-all. It was the first of five ties, with the last one at 18.
Jewell Chism, who had 14 digs and seven kills for Bloomfield, broke the tie with a tip and added a kill off the block. Chism's ace brought Bloomfield to set point with a five-point cushion.
Advance went on a three-point run before Bloomfield handled the serve and Nicole Roper, who finished with 23 assists, reversed a sent behind her and Cayla Mayberry buried it.