The Romeo Bulldogs’ 5-0 start and subsequent 25-11 first set win over Fraser on Tuesday was exactly what they needed.

“It’s everything to be honest with you,” said Romeo coach Stacy Williams. “It kind of sets the tone for the rest of the game. It tells yourself what you can do.

“You know, being young, we need to tell ourselves that we can do this, because we know we can, but now we just need those points to kind of follow at the beginning of the set. So it does mean a lot.”

The Bulldogs went on to win the game, 3-0, over Fraser at Troy High School in the regional semifinal round.

The torrid start was something that Fraser head coach Kim Arigiri-Slone saw coming.

“I just knew that was going to happen because they have a lot of weapons,” Argiri-Slone said. “But, you know, I tried to tell them to use the first game to get used to the speed of the game, their tempo, their serves, their attackers, and it worked for a little bit in the second game.”

It looked early in the second set that that was exactly what had happened — the Ramblers got off to a 6-1 start in the game, forcing Romeo to call a timeout.

And though Fraser led for most of the set, the Bulldogs continually closed the gap — 6-1 became 12-10 became 17-17 with Romeo taking their first lead of the set at 18-17 before going on to win it 25-22.

“Coming into this game, we knew that we needed to play like our game,” Williams said. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs throughout the season with consistency, and you saw that a little bit today from the first set to the third set, somewhere in between. In that second, we lost that, and we know that that’s our key to our success, is finding that consistency with that balance of urgency.”

That consistency, which returned near the end of the second, was back in the third. Like the first, Romeo got out to a strong start and never trailed on their way to a 25-17 set victory, ending the game.

“Honestly, our serve receive was much stronger,” Williams said. “Our serve receive in the first game, you know, was fantastic. Went a little bit astray in that second set, not as strong even in the third set. And we’re usually a really strong serve receive passing team, so we kind of rely on that, and that kind of was a little bit shaky for us, so we need to tighten that up, especially moving forward with a strong team.”

Williams’ daughter, Emma, and Emma Rosenow helped keep the offensive pressure on the Ramblers, with Argiri-Slone specifically singling out Rosenow as a player that gave their front line players problems.“They hit really far off the net too,” Argiri-Slone said. “We didn’t really work on that in practice, and that sort of gave us a little bit of struggles with our block, too.”

It ends Fraser’s season with a 23-12 record. They finished third in the MAC White and won a district championship.

Argiri-Slone hopes that her players remember the season as a fun one.

“(I hope they remember) that they had a good time, that we competed,” Argiri-Slone said. “We were in a lot of good matches and the team, they loved each other. The chemistry was good. They just said that in practice, no drama, you know, everybody got along, and it’s just total team effort.”

Romeo’s season will continue on Thursday, Nov. 14 with a regional championship tilt against the Eisenhower Eagles, who defeated Grosse Pointe North on Tuesday to advance.

Eisenhower kept their hot streak alive on Tuesday at Troy — it was their ninth-straight win, beating the Norsemen 25-12, 24-26, 25-14 and 25-13. Their last loss came exactly one month before in a tournament to Northville on Oct. 12.

Ike sophomore Liliana Tripi accrued her 1,000th career assist in the win, handing out a total of 47 in the game on top of seven digs and four aces. Elise Bierman led the team with 25 kills with 10 digs and two aces. Gina Fedrigo, Lily Gegovic and Rease Buza each put down eight kills, and Buza had 21 digs. Kayla Ostrander had 24 digs and six assists.

Thursday will be the third meeting this season between the Bulldogs and Eagles, with Ike having won each of the last two. Ike won in four sets on Sept. 10 and three on Oct. 9.