The Twin Rivers Lady Royals volleyball team celebrates their first MSHSAA district championship in school history Tuesday night in Malden. (Rob Tate/DAR)

MALDEN -- After losing key components from last season, it was suppose to be a "down year" Twin Rivers coach Kelly Null said Tuesday night. But this year's team did something that no other Lady Royals volleyball team had ever accomplished.

With a 25-13, 25-19 sweep of Caruthersville, the Lady Royals took home the MSHSAA Class 2 District 1 championship, the first district championship in the program's history.

"From the moment that our seniors graduated last year everybody was kind of giving us the we're-gonna-be-down kind of year," Null said afterward. "We lost five of our starters from last year and Torey (Davis) was the only one who had varsity experience."

The victory was sweet for senior outside hitter Torey Davis. Davis had been apart of three straight runners up in district play in her career and she was excited to keep playing her senior season.

"It feels amazing," Davis said. "We've played for first place all four years I've been in school and we've gotten second. It feels good (to win)."

Before they had thoughts of advancing to sectionals Saturday, the Lady Royals first had to get past a surging Caruthersville team who upset two teams Monday in fourth-seeded Portageville and then top-seed Senath to earn the right to play for the championship.

After a close start to the first game, where the teams exchanged the lead once and tied five times, the Lady Royals used perfect serves to take the win.

With a 15-13 lead, the Lady Royals pulled away with 10 straight serves by sophomore Danielle Cole to lift her team. Stephanie Jennings had the game-clinching kill for the Lady Royals.

"She's so shy and so timid," Null said of Cole. "She never wants to be in the spotlight. And to step up in the district championship and just serve out the end of the game like that is probably the most overwhelming thing that has ever happened to her."

Cole finished the night a perfect 17-for-17 serving.

Davis was also impressed with the play of her younger teammate.

"She brought us out of that first game," Davis said of Cole. "She just been serving good all year and we needed her at that moment."

In the second game, Caruthersville once again put up a battle but it once again was late clutch serving that lifted the Lady Royals.

With a score of 17-15, Twin Rivers sophomore Mallory Douglas served up three straight aces to make it a 20-15 game. Caruthersville pulled to within 21-19, but Davis closed out the game with four straight service points to clinch the win.

Tayler McLane had 11 assists and added five kills.

Davis, who finished the game with five kills, was proud of her teammates for making school history.

"It's amazing that we all will get our names up (on the wall)," Davis said. "And everybody gets to remember us."

Even after taking some lumps during the season, Null knew her team could do something special.

"I still knew we could do it," Null said. "They still knew we could do it, they started off the season strong. We hit some rough patches our season was constantly up and down but ever since we lost to Puxico (Oct. 9) I told them from here on out everything has got to be uphill."

The Lady Royals dropped just one game, which was against Hayti, in district tournament play.

Twin Rivers moves on to play Liberty (21-8-3) at Clearwater High School at 3 p.m. Saturday in a sectional match. The winner advances to the quarterfinal at 6 p.m. later that night.