SPANGDAHLEM, Germany – Fresh off beating the four-time defending champion on Friday, AFNORTH tried to repeat that winning formula Saturday.

The Lions nearly did so, going the distance against the No. 1 seed Spangdahlem in a nail-biting, five-set match.

But while finishing up an undefeated season, the Sentinels were not to be denied with a 25-17, 22-25, 25-7, 19-25, 15-11 victory in the finals of the 2026 DODEA Division III European girls volleyball championships.

The win capped a season that saw the Sentinels drop only two sets – one each to Brussels and Baumholder - earlier in the week during the tournament’s round-robin matches, according to Spangdahlem coach Daniel Williams.

Despite not dropping a set to AFNORTH this year, Williams wasn’t surprised by the tenacity of the Lions, who knocked out four-time champion Ansbach in the semifinals.

“I was expecting a fight today from AFNORTH,” he said. “They’ve been playing up. They fought hard to get into this championship.

“Compared to the rest of our season, this was adversity today,” Williams said. But the Sentinels were ready. “I told them: ‘Nobody’s going to give it to you in the championships, you got to come out and earn it,’ and they did today.”

After the Sentinels took the first set, the Lions made it known this was not going to be another Spangdahlem sweep. The second set turned into a back-and-forth battle, with neither side able to pull ahead by more than two points until Ellie McPhee’s tap at the net fell in for the winning point.

In the third set, Spangdahlem senior outside hitter and setter Summer Mundy and sophomore middle hitter Aliya Taylor turned up the heat, combining for a string of kills and blocks that never let the Lions get close. Emily Castano capped the Sentinels’ dominating victory with a pair of aces.

But the Lions turned it around in the fourth set. Freshman outside hitter Sarah Swift punched in a few kills and had a pair of aces late in the set, while sophomore middle blocker Adelaide Cazzani used a light touch at the net to land a few points as AFNORTH pushed Spangdahlem to a tiebreaker.

The Sentinels, suddenly faced with their first loss of the year, never trailed in the fifth set, jumping out to a 13-4 lead. With Swift serving, the Lions clawed their way back to make it 13-11. But Taylor added another kill to her tally and helped Spangdahlem close out the match and the title.

“I told them the first to five is going to win the match,” Williams said. “And we were the first to five and came out with the win.”

Castano said the match was the hardest one Spangdahlem played all year, and it was somewhat unexpected, given the team had swept AFNORTH twice in the regular season and once in round-robin.

Losing two sets to AFNORTH “really made us fight for what we wanted,” she said.

AFNORTH coach Na’Rina Woodard said the Lions focused on defense to counter Spangdahlem’s potent offense.

“They have a lot of good hitters and, knowing that, we worked hard with our blockers,” she said, citing Cazzani and McPhee, who “had a lot of good blocks, a lot of good touches.”

The Sentinels were still hard to contain on offense. Mundy and Taylor tallied 14 kills apiece. Mundy also led the team, along with Castano, with 14 assists.

“I think they were just more scrappy,” said Mundy of AFNORTH, while the Sentinels struggled with the pressure of wanting to win the title before their home crowd.

“I kept telling the girls, this is our game, this is our win this year, we have to get it,” she said. “We tried to have a good mindset, just keep the momentum and all the energy.”

Castano said she “knew we could bring it home. I just trusted myself, my teammates.”

Winning after finishing runner-up last year “feels amazing,” she added, “like a weight lifted off my shoulder. Now I can go trick-or-treating.”

Spangdahlem led the eight-member All-Tournament team with three selections: Mundy, also named tournament MVP, Castano and Taylor. AFNORTH senior setter Gulce Ozmenn,

Ansbach’s Corinne Bulinski, Brussels’ Jayda Diaz-Figueroa, Alconbury’s Iyawna Jones, and Baumholder’s Leaiseaiga Vaisagote rounded out the team.