Pat Donahue/Times-EnterpriseThomasville's Kinsey Kelley and Sanaa White go for a block against Dade County.

THOMASVILLE — The road to the state volleyball championships ended in their own home gym for the Thomasville Lady Bulldogs.

Dade County advanced to the Class A/AA public schools third round with a 25-17, 25-14 and 25-23 win over Thomasville on Saturday afternoon at the THS gym. The Lady Wolverines will meet Rabun County next, while the Lady Bulldogs’ season came to an end.

“It was frustrating,” said Thomasville coach Kelli Fitzgerald. 

Dade County swept Atlanta’s McNair to advance to the second round. Thomasville dispatched McIntosh County Academy from Darien in three straight games to set up the matchup with the Lady Wolverines.

Through the first two games, the Lady Bulldogs and Lady Wolverines were involved in a handful of protracted rallies. 

But the Lady Bulldogs couldn’t overcome a multitude of miscues, Fitzgerald acknowledged.

“We made more mistakes,” she said. “We made more passing errors. We made more serving errors. When you get to this point in the season, you can’t make simple mistakes, but we did.”

In the second game, the Lady Wolverines led just 12-11, after Hannah Wright and Sophie Franklin saved a point, and Sanaa White delivered a kill. Dade, though, closed the game on a 13-2 run, putting Thomasville into an 0-2 hole.

Dade County, from the extreme northwest corner of the state, staged a comeback to take the third and clinching game. Thomasville led 20-14, its biggest lead of any game, on Kinsey Kelley’s kill. The Lady Wolverines ran off the next five points, and eventually took a 23-22 lead. 

After a service winner put Dade in front 24-22, the Lady Bulldogs averted one match point, but couldn’t stave off elimination on the next serve.

“Some of our best servers struggled with their serves, and that’s hard to overcome,” Fitzgerald said. “When you struggle with serves, you’re giving away free points.”

Despite the sweep, Fitzgerald believes her team was at least evenly matched with the Lady Wolverines. 

“We’re young,” she said. “We have freshmen who had never been here before. It’s frustrating because I think we’re better than what we showed today.”