Bishop Guertin girls volleyball players rejoice after beating Concord 3-1 Saturday in the Division I quarterfinals at the Colligadome. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – All season long, Bishop Guertin had the look of a Division I girls volleyball Final Four team.

Now the Cardinals are one.

Guertin (No. 4, 16-4) pulled out a 3-1 quarterfinal win Saturday over a tough No. 12 Concord team to advance. The sets were 25-15, 20-25, 25-17, 26-24.

“We wanted to prove it to ourselves,” Guertin coach Kyle Clement said. “I feel like we had that mentality all year, we earned that No. 4 spot throughout the season, and it was like ‘OK, that’s great, but it really doesn’t matter until the tournament happens. Now that we’re in that Final Four I’m really proud of these girls. They’re not satisfied but they’re proud of themselves and they should be.”

Guertin will play either No. 1, unbeaten four-time defending champion Bedford or local rival No. 9 Merrimack on Thursday night at 6:30 p.m.

“Honestly, it is so huge for us to go to the Final Four,” Guertin’s top hitter, said senior Akira Coravos, whose kills late in the fourth set helped the Cards down the stretch. “All of our four years here we’ve never made it this far, especially in my time on this team. I think this is the year we’re going to do some really great stuff.”

The Cards, led by Coravos and Caitlin Harrington, took control with a big first set win. They stumbled in the second set, won the third, and then were poised to pull away at 20-17 before Concord’s top hitter, six-footer Katie Blinn, helped give Concord a 22-20 lead. BG rallied, and a Blinn kill staved off a match point to even things at 24. Coravos, known more for her vicious hits, then gently tapped the ball to an open spot to give Guertin another match point and Harrington hit ended it.

“First Saturday game, and once we’re behind we kind of struggle to get back from that,” Concord coach Maria Wimpey said, her team ending up at 9-11. “It’s how we’re going to get to the mindset of getting ahead.”

Guertin also got great play from setter Brook Partridge, libero Veronica Gomez, and hitter Allison Marino, who Clement felt “was very smart with her hits.”

Bishop Guertin’s Veronica Gomez, left, prepares to dig a return from Concord’s Avery Macdonald after a hit by BG’s Allison Marino (11) during Saturday’s Division I quarterfinal match at BG. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Bishop Guertin’s Veronica Gomez, left, prepares to dig a return from Concord’s Avery Macdonald after a hit by BG’s Allison Marino (11) during Saturday’s Division I quarterfinal match at BG. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

But it all revolves around Coravos, who made a difference. “Like I’ve said before, she’s our catalyst,” Clement said. “If she is on fire, and the rest of the team goes with her, we’re a tough team to beat. She’s been like that all season. For us that’s huge.”

Still, it wasn’t easy. Concord got Blinn back from shoulder surgery just in time for the start of the tourney and Nashua South found out the hard way that with Blinn the Tide is much better than your typical 12th seed.

“You’ve got to give them credit,” Clement said. “They did a great job coming back no matter what we threw at them. They played much better than their seeding was, (Blinn) made a huge difference for them. … I warned them, don’t get to five (sets) because anything can happen.

“But my girls were able to respond, no matter what.”