CONRAD — High school seniors always strive to leave a mark on their hometown school.

BCLUW volleyball’s senior group did that and more on Tuesday night.

The Comets secured one of the biggest wins in the program’s history with a straight-set sweep of North Tama in front of a packed crowd gathered in BCLUW High School’s gymnasium for a battle between two top-five teams in Class 1A.

BCLUW, ranked fifth, won 25-18, 26-24, 25-18 and improved to 16-6 and 6-0 in the Iowa Star South. North Tama, ranked third, falls to 14-11 overall and 3-1 in the South.

The Comets have wrapped up their first conference title in school history, and will take on Colo-NESCO next Tuesday for a chance to make it a perfect 7-0.

“This is really special for us seniors,” Sydney Anderson said. “It’s what we’ve wanted for years, and now it’s all finally coming true.”

With leading hitter Grace Farnsworth out with an ankle injury, the front row Comets upped their game for a decisive first-set victory fueled by a late 5-1 run that included kills from Miranda Jones and Olivia Peters.

The second set was much closer as the teams traded lengthy scoring runs only to end up tied at 23-all after all timeouts had been called in the set. Izzy Hallett landed a kill to give North Tama the advantage, but BCLUW scored three points in a row, with Anderson putting in an ace serve to send the large Comet contingent into a frenzy.

“We were all excited knowing everyone was going to be here tonight,” Anderson said. “We knew we needed to do our best and I think we came out and did it.”

The Redhawks battled to 13-13 in the third set but a Jones kill and back-to-back Anderson aces opened the floodgates on an 11-2 Comet surge that put the Redhawks too far behind, even as they fought off match point three times.

A Redhawk serve went long to end the match.

“We just don’t have a lot of experience in these types of settings,” North Tama head coach Channing Halstead said. “We never were the aggressor tonight, which is not usually us. We’ve got to get back to playing North Tama volleyball. It’s a lot of pressure on our kids but we’re gonna learn on the fly and we’ll see them a couple more times.”

BCLUW freshman Olivia Peters had 11 kills and Miranda Jones added nine kills; Mallori Jones, Kailan McEwen and Virginia Kaisand all chipped in on a Comet attack that seemed to disorient North Tama’s defense at times.

“We’re usually pretty good out of system, but we weren’t today,” Halstead said.

The student section mobbed the Comets after the match on a special night for the BCLUW community that also served as Comets vs. Cancer night, honoring those fighting against cancer including high school teacher Jodi Hinegardner, who the community has rallied around in recent weeks after she was diagnosed with cancer over the summer.

“There’s just a lot of things to celebrate tonight,” said BCLUW head coach Abby Stephenson. “The community, our seniors, coming out for our cancer awareness night, getting to watch some good volleyball. … We always get great support from the community and this is just a huge accomplishment for the girls.

“The message is — we’re not done. This is going to be a lot of fun to build on and make sure that we can go out and keep doing what we need to do here.”