CULVER — Triton coach Gayle Perry can be a pretty tough cookie, but she understands the need for a little levity from time to time. After a frustrating third game at Tuesday’s Sectional 51-opener with South Central, Perry recognized such a moment and used some sweet dance moves to lighten the mood.

Go-to players Nicole Sechrist and Hannah Wanemacher delivered, Charlotte Morris joined the party, and a relaxed Blue Slam lineup fought from behind to finally break the Satellites’ momentum late in the fourth set, finishing off a 25-13, 25-15, 24-26, 27-25 win at Culver Community.

Triton (14-16) now advances to face the host Cavaliers (3-23) in the morning semifinal Saturday at 11 a.m. The winners of Thursday’s quarterfinal matches between LaCrosse (1-19) and South Bend Career Academy and Oregon-Davis (3-16) and Argos (0-23) will play in the late

semifinal scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Saturday, with the championship on tap for 7 p.m.

“I had to get them to loosen up and calm down,” recalled Perry of the huddle following the third game Tuesday. “If I’d have just screamed at them, they would’ve kept playing like that. I needed to make them laugh so I danced. I don’t ever dance… so when I started they couldn’t help but laugh, and that broke the ice a little bit. And then I said ‘We’re going to win this game. We’re going to find a way.’ We went to our, what I call our money players. We went to Sechrist, Wanemacher took control, and Charlotte Morris came through in the end for us.”

Sechrist was her usual formidable net presence with 16 kills and three solo blocks, while Wanemacher was probably even a little better than usual with a prolific 31 assists and team-high 15 digs to go with three aces opposite South Central (14-17). It wasn’t a breakout match for Morris — who had already started rolling before a sprained IT band in her left knee sidelined her for more than three weeks — but it was something like a return to form for the senior middle hitter as she tallied 11 kills Tuesday. She and Wanemacher combined to win a joust with Molly Mueller and Jelena Hagy in what eventually proved to be the match point in the extended fourth game Tuesday.

“Before she had the injury we had just played Culver, and she had 16 kills for the match so she was just starting to come on. She sat out for three, three and a half weeks with this knee thing, and then we got a knee brace and put it on her,” explained Perry of Morris.

“We finally got some of that conditioning back in her, and now we’ve got to get her head right.”

The Blue Slam pretty much cruised through games one and two, using a 9-5 run early in the first game to take control on the way to a quick, 25-13 win and a 16-5 run to seize the momentum in the second set after a 4-0 start by the Satellites on the way to a nearly-as-lopsided, 25-15 win there. But South Central held off match point five straight points in the third game, and a miscommunication and a bad serve receive cued a 26-24 Satellites win in that set to prevent the sweep.

“Let’s give them credit; they didn’t quit. They were scrappy,” said Perry. “Any other team might have given up, and it looked like in the second game the wheels were coming off the bus but they didn’t quit. Their coach, she did a wonderful job keeping her team up. They wanted to win. They just didn’t want the season to end.”

With the momentum in South Central’s corner, the Blue Slam led just once in a nip-tuck fifth set that featured 10 ties before a Wanemacher set and Morris kill finally put Triton out front at 26-25. The duo’s joust on the weak side cued the win on the next point, setting off a celebration by the defending three-time champions.

“We do a lot of drills where we play to three or we set the score. They don’t like the consequences when they lose, and they’re competitors. You can see it come out,” said Perry of her team.

“They have this fight, and when that’s on, look out.”

Behind Wanemacher’s, Morris’ and Sechrist’s stat-leading performances Tuesday, sophomore Alyxa Viers finished with nine digs, and junior Sydney Musilli recorded five aces. The Blue Slam moves on in search of a fourth straight Sectional 51 title against host Culver Community Saturday morning. Triton and South Central owned more wins coming into Tuesday’s opener than the rest of the field combined, but Perry believes her team won’t be overlooking anyone after the Satellites’ challenge.

“After this game, we won’t be overlooking anybody. This is a growing moment for us, and sometimes when you struggle the most is when you grow the most,” she said. “Even though I wanted them to come out and dominate like they did in the first two games and take control of the match, this was good for them to go through this so that we handle the pressure. We came out on the other side. We didn’t play our best so I’m pretty sure that we’re going to have two really good practices this week before we see Culver.”