CLASS 5A-3: Indians defeat Gulf Coast for a third time to move into Saturday's region final.  Having defeated the Naples Gulf Coast High volleyball team handily in the first two matches of the season, the last thing Venice High wanted to do was to take the Sharks lightly.

In fact, the Indians took measures against it.  Football player Brandon Wilkinson addressed the team about beating a team more than once in a season.

"We actually did talk about it," senior middle hitter Jillian Allen said. "We didn't want to think, 'We beat them twice, we can beat them again.' We just didn't want it to get in our heads that we beat them twice before."

Gulf Coast pushed the Indians like they had not been pushed earlier.  But Venice pushed back.

Even though it was the most competitive match of the three, the Sharks were no threat to the Indians, who needed 62 minutes to post a 25-15, 25-20, 25-15 victory in the Class 5A-Region 3 semifinal Tuesday night at Venice.

At 2 p.m. Saturday, the Indians will be at home in search of their sixth region title against Clearwater, which knocked off Tarpon Springs East Lake in three games.

While he wanted his players to guard against a letdown against a team it defeated 25-12, 25-14, 25-16 during the regular season and 25-9, 25-13, 25-13 during the district final, Venice coach Brian Wheatley would rather be going for a third straight win than a first.

"I think it's easier to beat a team three times, because I'd much rather be on the we won two times side of the coin than the other way," he said. "It's such a big mental edge."

Gulf Coast had plenty of season firsts against the Indians on Tuesday: their first run of five consecutive points (late in Game 1), their biggest lead of three points (8-5 in Game 2) and the most points they scored in one game (20).

"We played a lot better than last time," said Gulf Coast coach Christy Wright, a former player and coach at Lemon Bay as Christy Hutcherson. "We're just not consistent enough play after play.

"But you can only do so much in a week," Wright said. "You can't change stuff that much. They are more consistent player for player."

Down 19-9 in the first game, the Sharks had a five-point run to close to within five. Venice (21-8) scored six of the final seven points, beginning and ending with kills by Allen.

The Indians' fortunes changed in the second game when they put up a better block. Tied at 11, Venice scored six straight, five with Brittany Burrows at the service stripe. But it was the blocking of Morgan Shattuck, Payton Herschberger and Allen that provided a spark.

"The middles were closing the blocks," Allen said. "The outsides were doing a great job of setting it up."

Venice had not registered a block until that juncture. "Our blocking was huge in the second game," Wheatley said.

Autumn Duyn had four of her match-high 15 kills that broke a 9-9 deadlock in the third game.

When the Sharks (22-6) pulled to within 16-14, Allen notched two kills, Burrows and Duyn added one, Emily Daniels recorded an ace and setter Taylor Capasso came up with a block, along with a Gulf Coast hitting error to get it to match point.

Libero Dorothy Rahal ended it in impressive fashion with the Indians' seventh ace.

"We responded well," Wheatley said. "It was good to be pushed."