MONTICELLO — Black Hawk won its second straight conference title with a sweep of Monticello Oct. 10.

The Warriors (10-0 Six Rivers East) utterly dominated the Ponies from the opening serve, winning 25-9, 25-13, 25-20. Black Hawk’s conference win streak now sits at 24 straight matches dating to 2017.

“We could not put the ball down. We weren’t playing bad — they (Black Hawk) are just unbelievable. They’re smart; they are athletic; they are just unbelievable,” Monticello coach Rebecca Gustafson said.

Tara Wellnitz and Hannah Butler blocked a kill attempt on the first volley of the night, and three serves later Butler slammed down a kill to give her team a 4-0 lead. After inching closer and making it 5-3, Monticello fell apart.

Butler, the reigning conference player of the year, went off at the service line, serving seven times in a row with a pair of aces to put her team ahead 12-3, sapping all the energy the Ponies brought to the table.

“We had a lot of energy at the beginning, that’s for sure,” Black Hawk coach Rachel Wolff said. “I do like how they came out, because it’s going to take a lot of energy to beat a team like Monticello.”

The Ponies again seemed to steady the tide, and after three straight points later in the set found themselves down 16-9. But that was as close as Monticello would get. Maddy Huschitt slammed the door at the service line for the Warriors, serving eight straight points. While Huschitt didn’t score an ace in the streak, it was her front hitters that did the job. Hannah Butler, Bailey Butler and Makayla Mau accounted for seven of nine straight points closing out the set by either blocks or kills.

“Hannah’s a magician. There are times it looks like she’s not even paying attention and she sticks her arms out for it and hits it and it’s a playable ball,” Gustafson said.

Black Hawk continued the momentum in the second set, getting up 11-0 on Monticello (8-2), the team with the second-best record in the Six Rivers East.

“You don’t dig a hole and battle back on that team. We were trying to, but we couldn’t get our offense going because nothing dropped. We didn’t even have that many errors — we just couldn’t put it down, put it away and gain momentum,” Gustafson said.

It wasn’t until the third set that the host Ponies showed signs of life. Monticello grabbed its first lead of the night by scoring the first two points of Game 3. Black Hawk recovered quickly, and before too long it was 9-4 in favor of the Warriors.

The third set featured several long back-and-forth volleys, and Monticello took advantage of the tiring Warriors and tied it back up at 10 with a 6-1 run. A side-out gave Black Hawk possession again, and Huschitt answered with back-to-back aces. The Ponies couldn’t bring the score back to even the rest of the way.

“They serve receive so well. They are basically a 2-person serve receive. ‘Don’t serve at a Butler’ — there is no place else to serve most of the time. Even if it looks like a 3-person serve receive, one of them will take it. And the rest of their girls are solid, too. They are just unbelievable,” Gustafson said.

Huschitt was a perfect 26 of 26 serving with three aces and 15 assists. Hannah Butler had 13 kills, three blocks and seven digs; Bailey Butler finished with nine kills and seven digs and Mau hammered home 11 spike kills.

Maggie Bak had five kills and four blocks for Monticello, with Ellie Gustafson adding five kills and Mackie Errthum five blocks. Miah Brokopp was busy in the back row, digging 21 shots for the Ponies, and Alexa Siegenthaler dished out 13 assists.

Black Hawk was set to host Juda Oct. 15 and then play at Argyle Oct. 17 to close out the regular season. One win would give the Warriors the outright conference title, while two upset losses coupled with Monticello wins at Argyle (Oct. 15) and Albany (Oct. 17) could mean a shared title.

“That (a conference title) was on a list of things we wanted to check off, but there is a list of things ahead yet, and we’ll just take it match-by-match,” Wolff said.