This fall, Arundel’s volleyball team has relied on a balanced attack rather than looking to one dominating hitter as they had in winning the past two Class 4A state championships. So far, the results have been the same.

The No. 1 Wildcats rolled past Bowie, 25-5, 25-8, 25-5, in Monday night’s state semifinals at Arundel with every player contributing. They had 34 kills in the match and while Taylor Johnson led the way with eight, five other players had at least four.

“Because the team is so balanced, everybody shares a special moment together,” said Johnson, a junior outside hitter, “and when we end the game, everybody feels like they were seen and it’s easier to have fun together… It’s more balanced and easier because it’s less stress.”

Swinton stressed that she loved playing with stellar middle hitter Zaria Ragler last season, but just that this team is different. Setter Emily Liu, who dished out 21 sets agreed.

“I think the chemistry of this team with everyone is also really good,” Liu said. “I feel like after every game, everyone knows that they’ve played a big role in the game.”

If they win the state championship, these Arundel players would accomplish something the previous two title teams did not — they would finish undefeated.

The top-seeded Wildcats (19-0) go for three in a row against Urbana in the Class 4A final Thursday at 7 p.m. at Harford Community College’s APG Federal Credit Union Arena. Urbana, which has never won a state volleyball championship, defeated Winston Churchill, 3-1, in the other semifinal played Monday night at Churchill.

Coach Ashley Yuscavage’s Wildcats are the only defending champions still alive in the state playoffs. Arundel is also the only 2021 state semifinalist — in any classification — to return to the final this season.

Bowie, the Prince George’s County 4A League champion, struggled with the Anne Arundel County champs from the start Monday and it didn’t help that one of their top players, junior Lonni Rogers, got hurt at the start of the match and couldn’t return.

Bulldogs coach Luanne Smith said her team had trouble with the speed of Arundel’s offense.

“We haven’t seen anybody play that fast all year long,” said Smith, adding that the Wildcats threw them “completely out of system and then, first, second play of the match, my captain, outside hitter goes down with a concussion, so that kind of affected what we did the rest of the match too, just because now you’re scrambling and you’ve got people playing a position that they don’t usually play.”

The Bulldogs (15-3), who lost to Arundel in the state quarterfinals last season, struggled to set up any kind of power attack while the Wildcats went on one long run after another — the longest 12 straight points to open the third set.

The Wildcats were exceptionally efficient with their hitting, making just one hitting error in the match. In addition to Johnson’s eight kills, Payton Swinton and Deviana Walker had six each, Brooke Waters had five and Kennedy McDowney had four.

Arundel also served at 95.5 percent and the Bulldogs struggled with serve receive. They managed only eight kills in the match. Audrey Owens had nine aces and Liu served seven while neither made a service error.

The most difficult part of such a lopsided match may have been simply staying focused, but Johnson said they work a lot on mental conditioning and that helped. They’ve also been in a few similar matches this season.

“We have conversations before practice, a lot about trusting your teammates, staying focused, staying relaxed,” Taylor said.

For Yuscavage, who has coached Arundel for 16 years, finishing this four-year run with Owens and Liu, who were freshmen on the 2019 team, would make another title that much more special.

“We won our first state championship when they were freshmen,” Yuscavage said. “We lost their sophomore year (to COVID-19), a year that we had such high hopes for and then to have a chance to do it again last year, it just seems like they have given us so much and it’s exciting to be able to have the opportunity to go back again with them.”