CHRISMAN — From losing seasons to last year’s regional championship appearance, Salt Fork coach Herb Wilkins is definitely pleased with the progress the program has made.

Making a return trip to the regional title match this year only backed his praise for the Storm’s accomplishments and was a bonus to their record-setting 22-win season.

But that’s where it ended as the Storm fell to the Tuscola Warriors in two games (25-18, 25-21) on Saturday.

“They played hard,” Wilkins said. “We had an idea to come out and do a little more blocking than we did. I felt it all depended on how we blocked their hitters. We had not seen No. 11 (Molly Romine) this year. She’s a real good hitter. She did an excellent job of hitting the ball. I thought we did a pretty good job early of blocking but we made a lot of mental mistakes tonight, for whatever reason.”

The Storm had not seen Romine yet this season, but they had met up with the Warriors early on. Salt Fork won the match 2-1. But with Romine not in the mix, her hitting abilities might have been the difference.

The outside hitter tallied 10 digs and recorded a match-high 15 kills.

“We are a completely different team at the end of the season,” Tuscola coach Aja Kohlbecker said. “Our goal was to take care of our side. If we passed well we knew we could run a nice offense and I think the girls did a really nice job of getting that done.”

When the Storm (22-7) were able to defend Romine’s attacks, the Warriors (17-11) kept Salt Fork off balance with their serve.

Wilkins said that part of his team’s demise resulted from ineffective passing. And it all started with the Storm’s serve receive.

“We weren’t doing a very good job on serve receive,” Wilkins said. “We’ve got a good group of hitters, but they can’t get a good hit if they don’t get a good set or at least get a high set. I’m not taking away from Tuscola. They did a really good job serving and it was just their night.”

Salt Fork led only once in the match when it opened the second game with a 5-3 advantage. In the first game, the Storm recovered from 10-4 deficit and eventually tied it up at 13.

But every time the Storm appeared to be gaining any momentum, the Warriors had a response. And according to Kohlbecker, it was a very calculated response.

“I’ll have to give credit to (Mallory) Meade,” Kohlbecker said. “She’s an athlete. We play her, too, in basketball. Her and Weber. There were times when she just wasn’t going to let it drop. Our goal was to not hit it to her because she was going to carry the team as much as she possibly could. During those points when they started to grasp a lead, it was basically her and Weber carrying it for them. Our goal was just to keep it from them and we arranged our offense accordingly.”

Meade and Weber are two of the Storm’s seven seniors that Wilkins credits with helping bring the program to where it now is.

Meade finished the match with six digs and four kills while Weber had seven digs and three kills. Hannah Wilkins, had five kills and six digs, and Maddison Stutsman led the team with 14 assists.

“Hannah Wilkins, Mallory Meade, Mallory Weber, Kristen Cox, Brittney Bedinger, Danielle Biggerstaff and Lesli Heath have done a hell of a job this year,” Herb Wilkins said. “I’m very proud of where they’ve come in the last couple of years.

“We’ve made some strides with this squad and over the last three years we moved up from the doormat of the league to where we’re at right now. It’s been a pretty good run.”