Bath volleyball eyes historic regional title after semifinal sweep

BATH — A year ago, Kyria Pairolero and the Bath volleyball team accomplished all it listed on its preseason goal sheet.

They won a tournament and also captured a district championship among other things during a successful 2025 season.

With a team full of returners, Bath has made it a point to accomplish more this year.

"We took every single one of those goals that we had last year and set them up a notch," Pairolero said. "It wasn't win a tournament, it was win three tournaments. It was like this kind of stuff."

The Bees have accomplished much of what they set out to do in what has turned out to be a special season that has included CMAC regular season and tournament titles and a district championship.

Bath has more it wants to achieve and took a step toward its bid to make history by sweeping Marlette in three sets by scores of 25-13, 25-17 and 25-22 in a Division 3 regional semifinal on its home floor Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The win sends the Bees into a regional final against Leslie on Thursday, Nov. 12.

"They are just a really highly motivated group of kids," Bath coach Madison Margraves-Beukema said. "They really are kind of chasing after the same goals. We've been working towards a long list of goals this year. One of them is to make history at our school. We've never had a regional championship at our school. They are just really, really motivated to try to do that. We're really glad to get to move on to the next day."

A year ago the Bees had their postseason run halted by Reese in a regional semifinal in what was their first appearance in the second stage of the MHSAA state tournament since 2020. Now after Tuesday's win Bath has matched the state tournament run made by the 2018 squad coached by Kristen McIntyre that reached the regional final before being eliminated.

Pairolero and teammates now want to have a different outcome than that group and aim to build on a special season that included the Bees not dropping a set in CMAC play through the regular season and postseason tournament. Bath also hasn't dropped a set yet in the state tournament and overcame a 22-19 deficit in the third set to wrap up its regional semifinal victory.

"Most of us are returning players so I feel like we all just kind of had a bone to pick," Pairolero said. "We wanted to get back to this place. That was one of our first goals. I know that was my goal. We really, really wanted to work hard and our goal was to stay undefeated at home so this is just another step."

Leslie reached the regional final with a sweep of Burton Atherton, winning each game by a 25-10 score.

Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on X @brian_calloway.