BOURBON – Eight eager volleyball teams gathered in Bourbon Saturday for the annual Triton Tournament.

While all the teams had sights set on a tournament title, only one would walk away with bragging rights.

Unfortunately for the Lady Warriors, they fell short of defending their 2012 tourney title.

Wawasee started its day strong with wins over Culver Community and John Glenn but needed a win over Bremen to guarantee the top spot in its pool and secure a spot in the championship match.

The Lady Warriors disposed of Bremen in the first set with a 25-19 win but had trouble keeping the Lions from roaring the next two sets.

One major issue for Wawasee was Bremen’s Cassie Sears. Sears led her team with 17 kills in the tournament and it certainly seemed like all of them came against the Warriors. Sears’ play kept her team in a pivotal second set and was the deciding factor in the third set.

Wawasee tried to get some momentum flowing in third set but Sears was there every time to kill the Warriors vibe. The final play of the tournament for Wawasee was Sears ending the match with a monstrous kill to give her team a 15-12 win in the third set.

While Sears’ play was certainly hard to overcome for the Warriors, Wawasee had a tougher time overcoming itself according to head coach Jeff Phillips, “We didn’t play well today at all.

“We passed around a 1.3 in our first game against Culver which is not good at all. Our goal is 2.0 so our passing is not where it needs to be and our serving is not where it needs to be. Those are our Achilles’ heels whether it’s in a tournament or a regular match. We have to get better on those things.”

One highlight on the day for the Lady Warriors was the return of senior Lydia Katsaropoulos who had been out with a head injury. Phillips was glad to have one of his lone seniors back with the team.

“Yeah, it was great to have her back. She is a key piece, obviously. Her serve receive is good, her defense is good and offensively she adds a lot and allows us to do more. But, today, you can see that everything is still a work-in-progress. We just have to get better from here,” Phillips said of his senior.

Wawasee (11-4) will take on Westview at 7 p.m. on Monday night in Syracuse.

At the time of this write-up there was no results received from Triton’s performance.