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In a fitting follow-up to their tightly-fought first match, Pelham outlasted Chelsea in a five-set battle to improve to 4-0 in area play. (Reporter Photos/Andrew Simonson)

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

CHELSEA – Just like the best sequels take the best parts of the first and make them better, the second meeting between the Pelham Panthers and Chelsea Hornets brought just as much excitement and competitiveness as the first.

Once again, multiple sets came down to the wire, two of the best offenses in Class 6A flexed their might and each team traded their best shots. Only this time, instead of ending matters in four sets, the teams went the distance.

In the end, Pelham held off Chelsea and won the final two sets to take the 3-2 win on the road at Chelsea High School on Thursday, Sept. 19, improving to 4-0 in area play to remain atop Class 6A, Area 8.

“It feels very good because our area is so tough,” Robinson said. “Everyone has been a battle. Nothing’s been in three with us.”

That tough test started from the opening frame as the Hornets took the fight to the Panthers early and often.

After a deadlock to open the first set, Chelsea won back-to-back points to take a 5-3 lead, but Pelham won three straight points soon after to go up 8-7.

The teams went back and forth from there with the Hornets retaking a 17-14 lead only for the Panthers to win five points in a row, including back-to-back Camryn McMinn kills to lead 20-18 and trigger a Chelsea timeout.

Chelsea came back and tied up the set at 22-22. Pelham got to set point with a 24-23 lead, but the Hornets once again responded to force extra points.

On the next point, Londyn Wynn was on the receiving end of a Lauren Buchanan swing, but she made a chest pass to the outside before taking the pass back to her and earning a kill. McMinn followed that with another kill to seal the 26-24 first-set win for Pelham.

The second set started almost the exact same way as Chelsea emerged from a 3-3 tie to go up 6-3 only for Pelham to tie the set back up at 6-6. The Hornets broke that tie and went up 10-6 after a massive Claire Casey dig which went over the net.

Soon afterwards, the Panthers won four straight points to take the 12-11 lead after a McMinn swing went off the block. Pelham increased the lead to 14-11 before Chelsea tied it up at 14-14 and later took a 16-15 lead.

The Hornets would never relinquish that lead thanks to a 4-0 run that Buchanan capped with back-to-back kills, making the score 21-16 going into a Panthers timeout.

Buchanan continued to lead the offense down the stretch to win the second set 25-21 for her team and tie the match up at 1-1.

Pelham emphatically responded with a 4-0 run to start the third set before Chelsea’s front row orchestrated a comeback to tie the set at 8-8.

However, the Hornets hit the ensuing point out of bounds, leading to another 4-0 run by the Panthers heading into a timeout.

Chelsea rallied back from three down, using a Buchanan ace to get within one and a block from Presley Durham and Alexis Rudolph to tie the set at 17-17.

Pelham quickly retook the lead off a service error and got out to another three-point lead, but with Cara Belcher on the serve, the Hornets got an ace to tie before Lila Willett and Katie Spencer secured a block to go up 22-21.

Chelsea then got to set point with a Rudolph ace to lead 24-22, but after a timeout, a Wynn kill from a back row followed by a Hornets error sent the teams to extra points again.

After trading the first two points, Kylee Hester got an ace to put the Panthers within a point of the set win, but Buchanan got back-to-back kills to swing the lead back to Chelsea.

Buchanan’s next swing was an error to tie the set, but she got another kill to restore the lead. Pelham then hit the ball out of bounds to give the Hornets the 29-27 win.

Now up 2-1 in the match, Chelsea took its momentum and went up by three early in the set, but the Panthers won the next four points to take the 7-6 lead off a Juliana Bitas ace.

That quickly became the theme of the set as the teams traded runs to exchange the lead. The Hornets won four straight points to take the 10-7 lead, and then Chelsea took a 15-12 lead soon afterwards.

Pelham tied up the set at 15-15 before back-to-back Buchanan kills swung the lead back in the Hornets’ favor. However, a service error gave way to a Panthers block party as they got two straight blocks to take the lead, another to force a timeout with a 21-17 lead and another to go up 23-18.

Chelsea briefly got traction back off a Belcher kill, but a pair of miscues tipped the set to Pelham, 25-19, to force a fifth and final set.

While Ryleigh Deaver gave the Panthers the first point of the set, Chelsea won the next two points and soon had a 3-2 lead.

That was when Pelham made its move to keep the Hornets from leading again. The Panthers won five straight points, including a McMinn ace, to take a 7-3 lead and trigger a timeout.

Chelsea made its last stand after the timeout with four straight points capped off by two straight aces from Buchanan to tie the set at 7-7, leading Pelham to take its own timeout.

The Panthers finished the job from there, taking advantage of a missed Hornets block on the ensuing point to end the match on an 8-1 run, with the only lost point coming off a service error.

With that, Pelham won the fifth set 15-8 to take the 3-2 win and end the sequel the same way it ended the first one: on top.

After the match, Robinson was proud of how his team overcame its rough spots and facing a road atmosphere for the first time in area play to get out with another win.

“We kept staying with what we’d asked them to do, and they just stayed with it long enough to get in that last set and see what happens,” Robinson said.

He was also extremely proud of his outside hitters, especially Wynn for earning 23 kills, which made up for a relative off night for McMinn, who had 20 kills, and got the Panthers out of some tough spots.

“The fact that we could come in here and generate some offense when we needed it and when we didn’t have it for a while tonight too, to find a way at the end, I’m pretty proud of all of them,” Robinson said.

Pelham now sports a 23-6 record and will have almost a week to recover until its next match on Wednesday, Sept. 25 at 6 p.m. on the road at Calera. It will also have a week and a half before its next area match on Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. against Helena.

The 12-8 Hornets will launch straight into the HeffStrong Tournament on Sept. 20-21 at the Finley Center in Hoover. They will face Lincoln and Baldwin County in pool play on Friday before finishing with Jasper on Saturday morning ahead of bracket play.

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