WINCHESTER – Final bragging rights stay home in Winchester.

After splitting the regular-season series with Middlesex League rival Lexington, the sixth-seeded Red and Black boys volleyball team used a star-studded performance and big runs in the first two sets to beat the No. 11 Minutemen, 3-0 (25-17, 25-17, 28-26), in a Div. 1 second-round tilt Tuesday night.

Junior Tuto Sampaio (17 kills, three blocks, two aces) and senior Jamie Watt (16 kills, five blocks) led the charge for Winchester (18-4). It awaits the winner of No. 3 Natick versus No. 14 Cambridge (Wednesday).

The loss snapped Lexington’s eight-game win streak. Its season ends at 15-6.

“To beat a Middlesex League team, it is special to be able to get the third one after taking a loss (in Lexington),” said Winchester head coach John Fleming. “But at this point, all the wins are great. So, we’ll take it.”

Watt provided his typical dose of stardom, erupting on the stat sheet while posting each of the team’s final three points in a gut-wrenching third set. But part of what separated the Red and Black was how others stepped up.

Sampaio was hot from start to finish, posting six kills in each of the first two sets and five more in the last one. Setter Adam Lubomirski (34 assists) fed him at the right times, setting up Watt for some electric hits – especially from the back row. The Minutemen had a tough time solving Watt and Kirk Levesque’s (three kills, five blocks) presence at the net, and sophomore Ethan Lubomirski played well at libero in place of injured senior captain Justin Girotti.

“After the game, (Watt) is the first to say that the game ball goes to Tuto Sampaio,” Fleming said. “(Sampaio) was fantastic today, and his growth from the beginning of the year until today is terrific. He’s turned himself into a tremendous player. … We got it from everywhere. A good balanced effort from everyone.”

Lexington looked comfortable in moments behind Harvard-bound senior Jack Fan (25 assists, two aces), Nadav Vachtel (10 kills) and Alessandro Luciani (seven kills), especially in a back-and-forth third set. Falling behind in the first two sets, though, hurt them.

In the first set, Winchester quickly turned a 15-13 lead into 23-14 with an 8-1 run that featured two kills, two aces and a block from Sampaio. The big run came even earlier in the second set, forcing Lexington into a scramble with a 7-1 run for a 16-8 lead.

“I think it changed the way they had to try to play a little bit,” Fleming said. “Once you have that deficit, you try to chip away and do some different things. A lead like that in a tournament game is huge.”

Minutemen senior Krissh Kamath had four blocks, including a couple in the third set. Lexington led three separate times in the frame and never trailed by more than three points. It also rallied from a 24-22 deficit to force a slugfest at the end.

Longtime Lexington head coach and teacher Jane Bergin is retiring from both, ending a 36-year tenure as the coach of the girls and boys volleyball programs. She’s been coach of the boys program since it started in 2010.