Senior right-side hitter Stella Davis wasn’t having a good match for Lincoln-Way Central.

The 5-foot-11 Davis had only one kill Thursday night heading into the deciding game of the regional final. Two days earlier, she came through with 11 kills in the regional semifinals.

Not much, however, was going right for her.

“I was really in my head a little bit,” she said. “I wasn’t really connecting because I was in my head. But my teammates cheered me up and got me out of my head and I went with the flow.”

Davis went out and cheered the fans up as well with a team-high four kills in the third game, helping the Knights beat the host Warriors 22-25, 25-13, 25-11 in the Class 4A Lincoln-Way West Regional championship match in New Lenox.

Megan Hoy led Lincoln-Way Central (24-11) with nine kills and 15 digs. Mya Donnelly tallied 15 digs, while Tessa Garcia recorded 26 assists and Isabella Bendoraitis added 10.

It’s the first regional title for the Knights since 2012.

“We won it in 2011 when I was a senior on the team and they won it the year after I graduated,” Lincoln-Way Central coach Amy Bernhard said. “It’s been a long time since we won it again.

“This is a very, very, very special group of girls. They are very young and very talented and they wanted this. They really wanted it.”

Sophomore right-side hitter Bailey Voss led Lincoln-Way West (15-17) with six kills — all in the second game. Emma Novotny added five kills and five blocks. Brooklynn Voss, Bailey’s twin, had four kills and two blocks.

With the win, the fourth-seeded Knights advanced to face the top-seeded host Porters (32-5) at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Lockport Sectional semifinals. The Porters beat the Knights twice this fall.

On Oct. 1, Lincoln-Way Central actually lost 28-26, 25-18 to Lincoln-Way West in a SouthWest Suburban Conference match, then Thursday night’s hard-fought first game against the Warriors featured 13 ties.

“I was in a boot when we first played West, so this was my first time playing them,” Davis said referring to being on the sideline with a sprained left ankle. “I was nervous.

“But after that first game, we knew we had to come out and play our best.”

Still, Davis didn’t heat up until the third game when she helped set the tone with two kills during an 8-1 run to help give the Knights an 11-5 lead.

“She did a very great job when we got her going in the third set,” Hoy said of Davis. “In that third set, she was just putting balls away and that’s what we needed.

“That was her job, and she showed up and did her job.”

Bernhard calls Davis a “spark plug” for the Knights.

“She brings so much energy and so much positivity,” Bernhard said of Davis. “She has so much fun when she is out there. The last time we played (West), she was out hurt.

“It was huge that we had Stella back. We used that to our advantage.”

Davis, who isn’t looking to play volleyball in college, plans on majoring in either nursing or exercise science. She started playing sports in first grade.

After trying basketball and running track, Davis started up with volleyball in eighth grade when Ella Thompson, her friend and current teammate, “pressured me into trying out.”

Davis said that she figured, “Why not?” What followed was a successful five-year career. She also will have fond memories of playing volleyball.

“This sport brings you together because it’s such a team-heavy sport,” she said. “It brought me some of my best friends, and I love how competitive it is.”