SAN MARCOS -- There were times during Brenham's state semifinal volleyball match that the Cubettes resembled targets at a shooting gallery, under fire from the bigger, taller girls of Richardson Pearce.

But these targets fire back, as the scrappy Cubettes demonstrated during a 25-21, 25-22, 27-25 victory over the top-ranked Mustangs before a crowd of 2,009 on Thursday night at Strahan Coliseum. Brenham played dazzling defense and battled at the net to earn its first berth in the state championship match.

Brenham (41-6) will play second-ranked Canyon Randall (41-1) for the Class 4A state title at 3 p.m. Saturday. Randall beat Seguin 22-25, 25-17, 25-13, 25-17 in the first semifinal.

Richardson Pearce finished the season at 44-6.

The Mustangs played four 6-footers, sometime putting three of the big girls on the front line at the same time. Brenham's only 6-footer played sparingly, but 5-8 Bethany Yeager's acrobatic digging and effective work up front by the Cubettes' 5-11-ish trio of Scout Brooks, Caroline Young and Emily Albus negated Pearce's height advantage.

"We knew they were going to be huge, and they got some big hits on us, but we did everything we had to do with our defense," said Yeager, who led Brenham with 16 digs, a couple of them spectacular. "That's what we have to do since we're small and scrappy."

Brenham trailed in every game, and seemed to be in danger of dropping the last two. Pearce scored five consecutive points late in Game 2 and had a 22-21 lead, but the Cubettes finished the game with a flurry true to their nature. Yeager dropped in a dink shot and then Kelsey Weynand delivered a kill to give Brenham the lead. The Cubettes reached game point on a hitting error by Pearce, which ended a point highlighted by Yeager's diving left-handed poke to keep the ball in play. Another error by the Mustangs gave Brenham a two-game advantage.

The Cubettes fell behind in both of their regional matches, recovering from an 0-2 start to beat Friendswood in the semifinal round.

"They keep trying to give me gray hairs," Brenham coach Debbie Yeager said with a laugh. "[The comebacks are] all because they believe in each other. You could see it in their eyes tonight. The girls were having a blast out there. During our timeouts, even when we were down, they were just grinning."

Pearce gave its fans reason to smile during Game 3, racing to a 13-6 advantage and leading all the way to game point. However, Brenham roared back to crush the Mustangs' hopes, fending off four game points along the way.

Brooks started the rally with a kill that made it 24-22, and then Pearce sent a spike a few inches wide of the sideline. After a Pearce timeout, sophomore Jill Sikes produced an ace on a tough serve when a miscue would have cost Brenham the game.

Pearce pulled ahead 25-24 on a kill by Elyse Burkert, but Brooks smacked a spike to get Brenham even. The Cubettes finished the match with back-to-back kills on quick sets from Molly Duge to Albus and Brooks.

"To come back from a seven-point deficit in the third game is really big," Albus said. "We're not going to give up."

Albus is athletic enough to hold her own at the net despite being a couple of inches shorter than her competition. A three-time All-America shortstop who has signed to play for Texas A&M, Albus had a well-rounded night with seven kills, eight digs and one block.

"We had people standing on boxes at practice [to prepare for Pearce's height]," Albus said. "We worked on hitting it off their hands and finding our holes to get the ball past them. We've been dreaming of this since junior high. To be the first team from Brenham to go to the finals is great."

Brooks, a junior, led the Cubettes with 11 kills. Young and Yeager added eight apiece. Kelsey Schwartz dished out 22 assists, while Duge contributed 11 assists and nine digs.

Junior Katie O'Brien led Pearce with 15 kills. Julie Olschwanger, who is considered one of the state's top college libero prospects along with Yeager, had 26 digs for the Mustangs.