NILES — The Niles volleyball team went 2-2 at the SMAC Conference Tournament at Kalamazoo Central on Saturday.

The Vikings lost to No. 4-seeded Portage Central 2-1 in the opening round of the tournament before rebounding to defeat Lakeshore 2-1 and Kalamazoo Loy Norrix 2-1.

Niles wrapped up tournament play with a 2-1 loss to Portage Northern.

“The SMAC is an incredibly tough conference and the top four seeds are all ranked in class A,” said Niles coach Jenny Nate. “We finished No. 5, right behind them, and ahead of six other Class A schools.”

Niles will now set its sights on repeating as district champion as it heads to Edwardsburg tonight for the Division 2 tournament.

The Vikings face Three Rivers in the opening round at 5:30 p.m. The second match will pit Paw Paw against the host Eddies, who were also district champions in 2017, at approximately 7 p.m.

“Although we struggle to maintain our consistency and energy at times, we played some of our best ball of the season Saturday,” Nate said. “Playing Portage Central that hard was exactly what we needed to prepare for district week.”

Coloma at Dowagiac

DOWAGIAC — The Dowagiac volleyball team wrapped up the regular season with a thrilling come-from-behind 3-2 victory over visiting Coloma last Thursday night.

The Chieftains dropped the first two sets to the Comets in the new Union High School gymnasium, 22-25 and 23-25.

Dowagiac rallied to win the final three sets 25-13, 25-18 and 15-6 to pull out the victory and improved to 25-14-2 heading into Division 2 district volleyball tournament at Edwardsburg Thursday.