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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

ALABASTER – After a late change to their scheduled tri-match forced the Thompson Warriors and Helena Huskies into their first five-set match of the season, they needed just about every point of those sets to separate them.

Thompson held off a great performance from Helena to claim the 3-2 victory over its county foe in five sets on Tuesday, Aug. 27 at Warrior Arena.

“I told them before the fourth set. ‘You’ve got to have a goldfish mentality. Just forget it happened, because goldfish can’t remember nothing,’” Thompson coach Judy Green said. “But this I want them to remember, because when you win five-set matches, it builds your confidence. The more you’re in them, they’re wars, and the more you win that battle, it prepares you for the next one.”

The two sides were closely matched from the first points as big momentum shifts dictated much of the match.

The Warriors won the first three points of the opening set, but from there, the Huskies took an 8-5 lead to grab control of the set.

Thompson tied up the set two separate times at 8-8 and 18-18 but never led the rest of the set. After the Warriors called a timeout during the 18-18 tie, Helena continued to impress and won seven of the final eight points of the set to take the 25-19 win and go up 1-0 in the match.

Thompson bounced back and led wire-to-wire in the second set. A 5-1 start to the set quickly ballooned into a commanding 13-4 lead that set the tone for the rest of the set.

The Warriors did surrender the serve on multiple occasions due to service errors, but the closest that Helena got to the lead was a six-point deficit at 19-13. Thompson reeled off five of the next six points to take a 24-14 lead and get to set point.

The Huskies fought through a long rally on set point that eventually led to a Warriors mishit, and the visitors also won the point after that to trim the gap to eight.

However, Thompson forced a mishit in the Helena backline to take the 25-16 victory and tie up the match.

This time, it was Helena’s turn to lead from the first point of the set to the final one.

The Huskies started out winning four of the first five points and eventually forced a timeout after they won three straight points to make the lead 12-6.

The Warriors couldn’t get closer than that as Helena quickly pulled away again, including a three-point run kicked off by a Thompson service error that Monroe Bouler immediately followed with a Huskies ace.

Another big run later in the set up Helena up 22-11 and just a few points from a third-set win, but the Warriors went on a service run of their own with four straight points to make the score 22-15.

The Huskies responded with three straight points to retake the lead in the match with a 25-15 victory in the third set.

While Helena took the double-digit win in the third frame, the pendulum swung all the way back to Thompson for a completely dominant run during the fourth set.

The set started out as evenly matched as any as Helena took three straight points to tie up the set at 5-5.

That, however, gave way to a big 13-3 run that included a streak of five straight points with Alex Stewart on the serve.

The Warriors led 18-8 at the conclusion of the run, and that run proved to be the difference as the sides resumed their back-and-forth play to close the set.

Helena won a couple of points including a block to help pull within eight, but Thompson reestablished its double-digit lead off an Anna Campbell kill, a dump at the net by the Warriors and a Maddy Henderson ace.

After the Huskies strung together another pair of points to make it 22-13, Thompson took the final three points of the set to close out the 25-13 win, and the 12-point victory sent the teams to the fifth and final set with the pressure cranking up in the arena.

Both teams had service errors in the early points that forced four separate ties before the Warriors went up 7-6.

The home side then added two more points, including an ace that forced Helena to call timeout down 9-6. Thompson then added another ace after the timeout, this one a lot closer of a call for the line judge to make.

The Huskies responded with a big kill to the back right corner to pull back within three, and the teams traded points from there until Thompson led 13-9 and sat just two points away from the match win.

However, Helena didn’t go away quietly as it got a kill and then a block to make the score 13-11 and force a Thompson timeout.

Needing a quick response to avoid extra points or worse, Henderson stepped up for the Warriors with a kill to put her team on match point and draw a timeout from the Huskies.

Thompson then hit a shot that struck the top of the net and rolled onto the ground to seal the 15-13 fifth set win and a 3-2 match victory.

After the match, Green credited much of their success in the final two sets to a new serve rotation that gave them better attacking matchups. She also believes they minimized mistakes down the stretch, which is key to winning any match.

“Volleyball is a game of imperfection, and you just have to try to minimize them as best you can but also still be aggressive,” Green said. “It’s just that really fine line. But I thought the girls let us coach them really well through the match and that’s impressive to me.”

She also believes that the experience in a five-set match will help them down the road in area play and the playoffs, especially since some of the players on her young team had never been in those deep waters before.

“We have players who’ve never been in a five-set match before,” Green said. “They’ve only played two out of three their whole career. So, today was a big-time experience for them.”

Thompson is now 7-1 on the year and will have a unique challenge on its plate for its next match. A day after the football team takes on the Lipscomb Academy Mustangs, the Warriors will play an in-school volleyball match in Nashville against the Mustangs on Friday, Aug. 30 at 1:30 p.m.

After seeing their five-game win streak snapped, Helena will hope to get back to winning ways and improve on its 6-2 start to the year against Mountain Brook on Thursday, Aug. 29 at 6 p.m. at Helena High School.