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Orem sophomore Moana Havea celebrates scoring a kill with teammates during Friday's straight set win over Desert Hills. October 30, 2026

Brandon Gurney, Daily Herald

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Provo players celebrate a point during during semifinal action versus Green Canyon. October 30, 2026

Brandon Gurney, Daily Herald

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Orem players huddle up after scoring a kill during their semifinal win over Desert Hills on Friday. October 30, 2026

Brandon Gurney, Daily Herald

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Orem's Eve Allred celebrates a team point during Friday's semifinal win over Desert Hills. October 30, 2026

Brandon Gurney, Daily Herald

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Orem coach Bill Sefita instructs his players between sets during Friday's semifinal win over Desert Hills. October 30, 2026

Brandon Gurney, Daily Herald

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Every coach hopes to see their team playing at its best when it matters most, and in the case of Orem girls volleyball coach Bill Sefita, he saw exactly that during 4A state semifinal action on Friday.

The No. 1-seeded Tigers made quick work of Desert Hills, taking the match in three sets (25-20, 25-11, 25-18) to advance to the state championship match where they’ll take on No. 2 seed Green Canyon. As Sefita gathered his girls around him shortly after the match he expressed a lot of satisfaction of their play set forth throughout the win, making mention that he felt it was one of the best matches he’s seen from his team all season while immediately lending focus that it’s ultimately more than volleyball.

“We’re finding (the) team (concept), and I think the girls are still participating in that idea because at the end of the day — I hope as a coach is that when they leave this program, they can still call upon each other, and hang out because that’s one thing they’ve noticed is volleyball is just a little bit of their life and it’s these connections that matter the most.”

But all that’s in the future, and as for Friday’s opening match, Orem proved on top of its game throughout most of the course of action.

Things didn’t start swimmingly for the Tigers, however. A motivated Desert Hills team landed most of the initial punches and found itself up 11-6 in the first set, prompting Sefita to call a timeout.

“I just took the opportunity to remind them that these are things we practice, and that’s what matters in practices we put them in different adversity situations,” Sefita related. “So that way if stuff like this happens in the game, we know how to address it.”

Address it the Tigers most certainly did, reeling off a 19-9 run to close out the first set 25-20.

The momentum was perhaps even increased during the second set with Orem rarely challenged en route to a 25-11 set win, setting up a third set, which it won by a relatively comfortable margin of 25-18.

Leading the way for the Tigers was Madi Scott and her team high 12 kills with freshman Meilana Akana adding ten more.

The effort afforded Orem some revenge from last season where it was bounced from the tournament by Desert Hills while setting up a championship match against a Green Canyon team which handed the Tigers one of their three losses on the season.

“The girls definitely used the revenge factor as motivation today,” Sefita said. “We’ve come a long way since that loss and now we get to play a great Green Canyon team that we lost to earlier in the year, and it should be a great match. We have a lot of respect for that program.”

No. 3 Provo goes down swinging

The fact that Provo advanced to where it did in reaching the state semifinal round was indeed a remarkable accomplishment, and Bulldog head coach Stefanie Magalei was adamant in imparting that fact to her emotional players following their tough 4-set loss to Green Canyon (25-16, 23-25, 25-20, 25-17.)

One of the players involved with the huddle, fitted with a big brace covering almost the entirety of her left leg was Coach Magalei’s daughter, Nevaeh Magalei, whose mere presence on the court was absolutely remarkable, all factors considered.

“She tore both her ACL and MCL early in the season during a match versus Skyridge, but she made the decision to just play through those injuries,” Coach Magalei explained. “So she’s literally been playing with both an ACL or MCL joint for most of the year, but figured out a way to play around those injuries as best she could and she’s been a phenomenal leader for us.”

Nevaeh isn’t just any player, either. Last season saw her throw down 578 kills while earning herself first-team All-state honors. The injuries impacted those numbers, and cut her total kill number for this season nearly in half, as a result.

“The first time she played with the brace was against Orem at their place and we lost it before we realized the girls were trying to compensate for her and her limitations,” Coach Magalei said. “We had to do just a lot of talking about how (Nevaeh) doesn’t need you to be a brace for her. She already has a brace. She needs you to do your job. We needed to focus on just one point at a time and just believe in the system and the team.”

Mission accomplished, in that regard, with Provo fighting through the adversity to reach final four status while leaving the UCCU Center with heads held high for the accomplishment.

“We were undersized this year, had to fight through a lot of adversity, but every girl gave it their all and I couldn’t be more proud of them,” Coach Magalei concluded. “We adjusted, fought our way through, and doing what we did in this tournament is something I hope all of them remember as a great accomplishment, even though it might be hard to do as much at this moment.”