Brophy Prep began Saturday taking on Hamilton in bracket play of its annual volleyball invitational and as fate would have it, ended the day with the same foe in the title match. The Broncos won a tight first set and triumphed going away in the second to defeat Hamilton, 25-21, 25-18 and win the Brophy Invitational held Friday and Saturday at Brophy Prep.

The eiight-team tournament field included eight of the top 12 teams in the current volleyball power rankings. The Broncos road to the title began with topping Hamilton Saturday morning  and Mesa Mountain View just after noon to reach the semifinals. They swept Highland 25-16, 25-18 in the semifinals then waited for the Highland-Hamilton winner to emerge for the championship match. Hamilton, playing through the loser's bracket, outlasted Highland in three sets. The second set was lengthy with Highland forcing a tie-breaker after a 30-28 win. Hamilton was close to running on empty by the time the title match began shortly after 5 p.m. as it played its sixth match of the day.

"We were gassed by the last match," Hamilton coach Jeff Bader said. "They're a very good team. (Brophy hitter) Andrew Lincoln is a special player and the rest of the their team played well."

Brophy coach Tony Oldani was eager for the weekend's competition and the Broncos proved their mettle for a third time in three invitational tries this season. They won the Wolf Howl in early March at Chandler, captured the top spot at a tourney in Las Vegas in late March treated the home crowd to the third title.

"Result-wise, we're happy," Oldani said. "This is a first for us. Winning the three touranments we competed in in the same season. They're nice, but the won that counts is the fourth one (state in May)."

Leading the way for Brophy was Lincoln, a versatile senior who makes the game look easy in every way. Lincoln was named the tournament's outstanding player (he earned the same honor at the Wolf Howl and in the Las Vegas tourney). He led Brophy with 10 kills in the title match and teammate Cole Herrmann was a nice complement with eight kills. Together they had 36 attempts and 18 kills with one error.

"Andrew is the best all around player I've coached," Oldani said. "We've had outstanding players at one position outside setter, but he does all those things as well as they can be done."

Hamilton led most of the first half of the first set and by as many as four points, but Brophy tied the score at 16 and took the lead for good on back-to-back blocks by Fred Miller. Brophy's final three points of the first set came via kills by Lincoln, Austin Inglett and Herrmann. Brophy pulled away quicker in the second set at the midpoint. The Broncos ran off five successive points with a 15-13 lead to go up 20-13. A Hamilton service error, a block, two kills by Herrmann and an ace from Adam Randolph pretty much ended Hamilton's run. A run that might never have materialized without a change of heart by Bader.

"We originally we"re going to give some other guys playing time if we lost the first match," Bader said.  "We thought about it again and decided we needed to get some chemistry back and I think that was beneficial."

Hamilton's offensive effort was led by Sam Haggard (11 kills) and Richard Reid (nine kills).

Joining Lincoln on the all-tournament team were Hamilton libero A.J. Lainowski, Highland setter Jayce Ashment and middle Max Pothier, Desert Vista middle Preston Brown, Mountain View hitter Luke Jackson and Sandra Day O'Connor hitter Kaelon Lattomus.