This was the heavyweight title fight everyone was looking forward to. No. 1 Sandra Day O’Connor and No. 2 Brophy College Prep. And it didn’t disappoint. Both teams came out swinging. Big kills on both sides electrified the crowd. Someone had to come out on top. And in this one, it was Brophy 3-1 (25-22, 24-26, 25-22, 25-23).

“It’s unbelievably special to do it against that team who we know so well and have so much respect for. To do it with the final night of having these boys playing, it’s just incredible. It’s a storybook ending. Could not have scripted this better,” said coach Tony Oldani.

The Broncos were just returning the favor. O’Connor beat BCP 3-1 in a 6A baseball state semifinal just an hour before the first serve.

Brophy never trailed in the first set until O’Connor senior Finn Kearney tallied his sixth kill to put the Eagles up 16-15. The Broncos would quickly retake the lead at 18-17 and get up by as much as 23-18. Despite a couple errors, the Broncos took the set behind senior Connor Oldani’s six kills and two block assists

“No matter what, we couldn’t give them anything easy,” said senior Caden Thompson. “That was our gameplan coming in. Fight is as hard as we could. When we went up we swung and we didn’t back down. I’m proud of how everyone played.”

O’Connor was very active at the net in the second game, but not always in a good way. It was a mix of kills and errors that kept it close. O’Connor’s advantage was small but almost always present. The Eagles got set point 24-22 on junior Blake Shenin’s sixth kill of the match, but Brophy was there with a kill and block to force extra points. SDO junior Carter King scored a point on the next attack which was followed by a Bronco hitting error to end it.

And then we were tied at 1-1.

The Eagles used that momentum to start the third set on fire. It was 5-0 in a flash. The fifth point simply dropped to the floor when the Brophy defense froze and didn’t attempt a free ball. Oldani called timeout. It was the right call because the Broncos came storming back. They took their first lead at 9-8 highlighted by four kills from Connor Oldani. He and Thompson combined for 12 of the team’s points in the set.

The fourth game was the type of back-and-forth affair that fans had expected coming in. Neither team had a lead of more than a single point until BCP went up 10-8. Their largest lead was only at three points at 12-9. It was a lot of big swings and stout defense all the way to the end on both sides. Tied at 23-23, Oldani took a big swing to go up by one. Then he took another to end the match.

“He was unbelievable all night,” Tony Oldani remarked. “We don’t have the high level-level volleyball players O’Connor has. Watching him guide some of those guys around the court and how to deal with this -- he’s not only an unbelieve talent but he’s also a phenomenal leader on the court. He’s the best player in the state. What Connor has been able to do in lifting all the players around him, I couldn’t have imagined this is where it would have ended.”

It was a fitting end for the Grand Canyon University commit. He was the state’s leader in kills coming into the match with 516 and was fourth in the nation hitting at a .522 clip. Along with eight fellow seniors, he’ll end his career with a championship trophy. His father the coach has now finished 26 years at the helm with 669 victories. This championship, Oldani’s third at the school and the first since 2006, was probably the sweetest. He’ll still have plenty of time to see Connor play at the next level, most likely along with Connor's mother Renee, who has serves as an assistant coach for the team as well. GCU is just four miles from the Brophy campus.

Oldani (27 kills), Thompson (8), senior Ben Cugno (7), and senior Carson Collier-Ehrich (7) created a balanced attack across the front row. The team also out-blocked O’Connor 8-5.

“It was really the fact that they were going to stack on certain guys on our team. Being able to mix that up and get open looks is what we needed,” Connor Oldani said.

“When you’re in that moment you have to rise up, and we did that tonight,” Thompson added.

Sandra Day O’Connor also had a balanced attack but couldn’t find that many holes in the Brophy Prep defense. The Eagles were led by Kearney’s 26 kills, King’s 10, Sheinin’s 10, and senior Braeden Baker’s nine.