RIO RANCHO — Three more points.

Gary Maskaly saw the calm before the storm. If ever a perfect opportunity landed in the laps of he and his Los Alamos High volleyball team, this was it.

The Lady Hilltoppers were one game up on the hard-hitting, fast-charging Lady Sartans of Albuquerque St. Pius X, and knotted at 22-all in the second game of a Class AAAA state semifinal Friday at the Santa Ana Star Center.

Going up two games just might be the blow to topple the second seed of the state tournament.

Three more points.

But the dark clouds moved in, taking the form of outside hitters Samantha Brown and Ashley Newman plus middle blocker Hanna Gradza, and the black-and-gold storm moved to the semifinals with a 17-25, 25-22, 25-10, 25-18 win.

Brown, Newman and Gradza combined for 37 kills, and Maskaly, the Los Alamos head coach, was at a loss for words about how his team could have stopped the trio.

"The first game, they made a lot of errors, and then they stopped making them," Maskaly said. "It's a guessing game as to where they are going when you're playing big hitters like that who can control the ball. The hardest part is not keeping your defense from getting frustrated because they're gonna outguess you sometimes and you're going to outguess them."

The guessing game turned squarely into the Lady Sartans' favor once their passing improved.

Los Alamos (19-4) feasted on St. Pius hitting errors off of poor placement in the opener, as Brown, Newman and Gradza peppered shots everywhere but inside the red boundaries of the court.

"Well, since our strength is hitting, it was pretty frustrating," Newman said. "Once our passing got together, everything improved."

And the Lady Hilltoppers looked lost against the trio. Brown picked up seven of her 15 kills in a dominating Game 3 performance. Some of her hits came at such acute angles, Los Alamos was helpless to pick up any balls against her.

Every kill became a wild celebration for Brown, who often kicked one or both of her legs in the air after each point.

"I was feeling awesome, I was so excited," said the Notre Dame-bound Brown. "The first game, I was really off and the whole team started slow, but then we got it together and started playing as a team."

Newman chipped in with three kills, and also had three straight serving aces that turned a 21-9 advantage into a 24-9 margin.

But in Game 2, Los Alamos battled back from an 18-10 deficit with a 12-4 run. Again, it was a spurt carried mainly by Lady Sartans errors, although Nicole Moore had an ace and senior middle hitter Taylor Ealey added a kill.

With the match at a standstill, Los Alamos outside hitter Alexandra Nichols was called for net violation, then came a tip kill by Gradza for 24-22.

Gradza added another kill to close the match, one of 10 she had for the match.

The Lady Hilltoppers lose five seniors, including Ealey, Nichols and Moore, but Maskaly likes the size and skill of his underclassmen.

However, he added that the best way for Los Alamos to close the gap in the likes of St. Pius, Roswell Goddard and Albuquerque Academy — all AAAA semifinalists — is for its players to compete more in club and Junior Olympic teams.

"The younger girls, they learned a ton in getting used to this kind of tournament and this kind of emotion," Maskaly said. "The girls who go to the much bigger club tournaments, they are used to that kind of pressure and this kind of an environment. It's hard to adjust to that if you're not used to it."

Contact James Barron at 986-3045 or jbarron@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at thereadbarron.com.