WILMINGTON — Getting past the second round has been a longstanding goal of the Smyrna High volleyball program.

After earning the team’s first state tournament win in over four years just a couple days ago, the 15th-seeded Eagles had the opportunity to make that happen Friday night.

Though the team ultimately fell short of that goal following a 3-0 loss to No. 2 Padua Academy in the DIAA tournament’s second round, coach Daniel Wandless is proud of his team and believes achieving that second round goal is the program’s next big step.

“The girls played hard,” Wandless said. “I told them, ‘don’t worry about what the outcome is, let’s just make sure when we leave that gym we left our hearts on the floor,’ and I felt as though they did that. So, as a coach, I’m proud of them and happy for our season.

“From the time I started this program early on the first goal was to be one of the teams competing for a conference championship every year and the second is to be able to battle with the upstate teams, and this year we were able to do that. The goal is to get past the second round — we didn’t reach that goal this year — but that’s always going to remain our goal. That’s the next step for our program, to get past the second round.”

The 25-13, 25-10, 25-15 win sets up the Pandas (12-4) with a quarterfinal showdown against either No. 10 Middletown High or No. 7 Dover at St. Mark’s High on Tuesday. Tip-off is slated for 6 p.m.

Padua, last year’s state runner-up after a title loss to St. Mark’s, earned a state title in 2019 and has earned three overall since 2012.

Smyrna, coming off a 3-0 sweep of No. 18 Concord in the tourney’s first round on Wednesday, ends the season at 10-7. It marked the last game for the senior group of Gianna Romano and Elayna Tush.

The sweep of Concord marked the program’s first state tourney win since a 3-0 sweep of Brandywine on Nov. 2, 2017.

Sophomore Anna Richardson led the Eagles in kills with 11, while adding five digs. Sophomore Abigayle Osborne registered a team-high 10 assists with one dig; junior Karalyn Osborne added seven assists, five kills, two aces and two kills; sophomore libero Carly Timblin recorded six digs with one assist.

Senior Audrey Lyons led the Pandas with 34 assists and five digs; senior outside hitter Meghan Peters made plays all over the court, registering 14 kills, 13 digs, two aces and one block.

Padua’s junior libero Amanda Quinn registered 15 digs, two assists, one ace and one block while senior outside hitter Peyton Sullivan finished with 12 digs and seven kills.

Padua never trailed, scoring the first point of each of the three sets and never giving up the lead.

Smyrna kept it close to open the first set before Padua slowly pulled away for a double-digit lead to take the 25-13 opening set win.

Behind a strong serving performance from Peters, Padua jumped out ahead early with a 10-2 run in the second set to force Wandless to use a timeout to regroup. Padua’s momentum continued after the timeout as they put up 15 of the next 23 points for the 25-10 second set win to go up 2-0.

Trailing 18-7 in the third set, Smyrna wasn’t ready to end the season just yet and fought back to keep things interesting before Padua clinched the tourney sweep with a 25-15 victory.

“They put us out of system and when we were out of system that gave them good opportunities to have better passes to run their offense,” Wandless said of Padua. “That was the difference tonight, they were able to take advantage of us being out of system and put the ball away. Give them credit, they were able to run their offense and they ran it very well.”