HARRIS — Bark River-Harris prevailed over Forest Park 3-2, winning the tie-breaker fifth set 15-8 here Thursday in Skyline Central Conference volleyball.

BR-H won the opening set 25-18 totaling six service aces, three by Lilian Stenberg and two from Madison Draze.

Makena Lockwood had five first set kills to lead the Broncos in the opening frame.

Lockwood and Forest Park’s middle hitter Mercedes Simmons were battling with five kills each in the second set, won by the Broncos in overtime 26-24.

It looked like a possible 3-0 sweep for BR-H with the Broncos leading 15-10 in the third set, led by four more aces by Draze and four kills by Lockwood.

But Forest Park (6-5) stormed back to win the third set 25-17, out-scoring Bark River-Harris 15-2 with Simmons hitting six winners and totaling three solo blocks in the run.

“They are a strong team, they are a good team you want to beat,” BR-H coach Brooke Jorasz said of the Trojans.

“We made sure our top two blockers Makena Lockwood and Lilian Stenberg, especially Makena, to be in line with her (Simmons) to help shut her down or to make her push instead of swinging. We concentrated on setting up our defense against them.”

Forest Park continued its comeback, winning set four 25-23, with Simmons’ five kills and a block combined with strong serving runs from Cassie Divine and Laina Toivonen.

“We definitely showed resilience coming back to win the third and fourth sets,” said Forest Park coach Ana Cornelia.

“When we have that momentum and are in rhythm, we can be very good. We started out flat (in the first two sets) and for us to come back, we were playing better as a team.

“In the fifth set we had too many unforced errors and that hurt us”

Simmons led Forest Park with a game-high 25 kills and eight solo blocks. Kelsey Ragio had six kills and setter Sydney Honkala registered 24 assists for the Trojans.

Forest Park opens up district play Monday against North Central.

The five-set win for Bark River-Harris (8-6) lifts the winners into Monday’s home district opener against Manistique.

“We played them (Manistique) in pool play at the NMU tournament and lost to them but we did not have a full team then,” said Jorasz.

Lockwood led the Broncos with 23 kills and also had 37 digs, two aces and three blocks.

BR-H’s Stenberg had six service aces, five kills, 27 digs and three blocks. Draze had 36 assists, and Cameron Peterson had 33 digs.

The Broncos had 47 team kills against Forest Park, which pleased Jorasz.

“We had over 40 kills earlier this year against North Dickinson and beat them. And over 40 kills and beat Westwood. Stats aren’t everything but kills help,” she said.