Santa Fe’s game plan heading into its home match against rival Newberry on Monday night was to improve.

The Raiders did just that, committing only nine total errors in a 25-11, 25-10, 25-5 sweep of the Panthers.

“Our goal was to eliminate a lot of the errors that we were making,” said Santa Fe coach Eric Marshall. “We started the first set with errors, like three or four errors right away, but we slowly over set one, set two, and especially set three we eliminated those, which is what they’re finally understanding is going to take to win a state championship or to even win a regional game, is to stop making so many errors.”

Three consecutive errors gave Newberry a 3-1 lead in the opening set, and after Santa Fe took a 5-3 lead, they committed a service error that brought the Panthers within one at 5-4.

However, Santa Fe went on a 9-0 run to build a double-digit lead at 14-4.

Reagan Adkins (14 service points, six aces) had three aces during the run, including eight service points, to give Santa Fe a lead it would not relinquish.

“Against St. John’s (a 3-0 loss), she had an awful game,” Marshall said. “She’s a freshman, under a lot of pressure, and she’s super athletic but she’s just starting to figure out, ‘hey, I can play with these kids too,’ so I just think hers was all confidence because she has all the skill in the world. It’s just her confidence and now she’s starting to get that. Plus, she’s starting to get comfortable with the players on the floor which takes a little bit when you’re a freshman.”

Newberry (7-3) took advantage of a few attack errors and then a kill by senior Chloe Jones to close the gap to 19-11.

“We were really trying out something, we were playing single blocker defense and trying to pull 5 (MB Delaney Wingenbach) out and just try to dig them up, which we did at times in the course of the first and second sets, so we were on a game plan to see if we could do anything better with running that,” said Newberry coach Hank Rone. “That’s the first time that we really ran that against anybody. Their hitters are so powerful that we gave them a lot of open nets and if we weren’t right in line with where they were hitting it was hard for us to dig them up, but I felt the kids fought hard those first two sets.”

The Raiders (9-3) answered with a 6-0 run to end the first set on bookend points by junior Brooke Findley, who had a kill for a 20-11 lead and an ace to win the first set, 25-11.

Findley (game-high 10 kills) added four kills in the second set and also had three straight kills in the third set as Santa Fe built an insurmountable 18-3 lead.

“I think she could have had 20 if we had set her that much,” Marshall said. “I don’t think she could be stopped. She was in a groove. She was hitting all locations on the floor and the only reason she got stopped was because I pulled her. She would have loaded it up if we would have had just kept setting her, but I wanted to get some other people some reps. She is our six-rotation player and she’s getting better and better.”

Senior Gia McGrew and junior Alexis Rhoden added seven and six kills, respectively, for Santa Fe.

The Raiders were particularly good at serve receive and didn’t allow an ace all night.

“We’re getting better at footwork, which is what we work on at practice all day,” Marshall said.

It was also another big performance for Marshall’s daughter, Gracyn, who finished with 16 service points, a pair of aces, and 15 assists.

After Newberry took a quick 1-0 lead in the second set, Santa Fe answered with an 8-0 run as Marshall had seven service points and an ace.

She also had six service points and an ace to start the third set for a quick 6-0 lead.

“Gracyn is as solid as they come,” he said. “I can get on her as hard as I get on anybody, it doesn’t bother her. She’s her worst critic so I know what I’m telling her she doesn’t already know and she’s just very solid. Her serving is outstanding, she’s able to hit the zone most of the time, she digs balls, she sets the balls to who we need her to set the ball to. She’s just a smart, smart volleyball player.”

Sophomore Karlee Noah had 21 digs and junior Morgan Lawson added 11 assists for Santa Fe, which will host Forest (Ocala) at 7 p.m. on Tuesday night.

Newberry will travel to Williston on Tuesday for a rematch of last year’s region final. The first serve is at 6 p.m.