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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. – Fresh off a 3-1 win over Fort Payne on Thursday, Sept. 5, the Chelsea Hornets won five straight matches at the Rocky Top Classic from Sept. 6-7 to claim fifth place out of 63 teams.

Chelsea ended pool play with a perfect 4-0 record after sweeping Tennessee’s Station Camp Bison and Northeast Eagles and Kentucky’s Montgomery County Indians and Lafayette Generals.

The Hornets then moved on to beat the Powell Panthers out of Tennessee in the Gold Bracket before falling to Kentucky’s Taylor County Cardinals.

Before bracket play, Chelsea started the tournament with a tough matchup against Station Camp.

The first set between the two teams went down to the wire with the Bison sitting just a point away from sending the set to extra points.

Chelsea held strong at the end of the set for the 25-23 win, and that set the stage for a more comfortable win in the second set.

Station Camp still competed in the second set, but ultimately the Hornets claimed the 25-20 win to sweep the match.

That set the stage for Chelsea to face Montgomery County to close the Friday night slate.

The Hornets took a commanding lead in the set and never looked back as they won the first set 25-10.

The second set was tighter than the first one, but it still ended the same way as Chelsea took the 25-18 victory to beat the Indians and move on to the second day of the tournament without dropping a set.

That dominant start to pool play continued Saturday morning as the Hornets took on Northeast.

Chelsea kicked off the day with a double-digit set win, establishing its dominance early en route to a 25-12 first set victory.

Their momentum carried over into the second set as they also took a commanding win in that set to close out the match. The 25-13 win gave the Panthers their third straight match win in pool play.

The Hornets went into their final match of pool play looking to wrap up a 4-0 start to the tournament, with Lafayette the only team standing in their way of that.

The Cardinals put up more resistance than the Eagles did to start the day as they made it a close one going into the final points of the set, but Chelsea took the 25-21 win to go up in the match.

The second set then ended the exact same way as the Hornets won the second set 25-21 to head into the Gold Bracket undefeated.

Chelsea’s journey through bracket play started with a matchup against Powell, and the Hornets were as dominant in that one as any in the Rocky Top Classic.

In the first set, Chelsea used a big start to carry it on toward victory, earning the 25-10 set win to establish itself as the firm favorite in the match.

The Hornets made good on that momentum in the second set with another large victory, this time by a score of 25-11, to move on to the next round of the tournament.

Unfortunately for Chelsea, their tournament came to an end in the second round. Taylor County broke the Hornets’ streak of 10 straight sets without a loss with a 25-22 win in the first set and then went on to win the second set 25-20 to sweep the match.

Cara Belcher finished the tournament with 117 assists, 29 digs, four blocks and nine kills across the six matches. Lauren Buchanan had 61 kills, 20 digs, seven aces and four blocks. Payton Walker secured 42 digs over the weekend.