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The Chelsea Hornets are Class 6A, Area 8 champions after rallying from two sets down to defeat the Pelham Panthers in the final points of the fifth set in a wild and emotional championship match. (For the Reporter/Dawn Harrison)

(Reporter Photo/Andrew Simonson)

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

PELHAM – After Alexis Rudolph got the match-winning kill to give the Chelsea Hornets the Class 6A, Area 8 championship, she dropped to her knees, and all of her teammates joined her in a massive mob.

Whether it was exhaustion from the five-set war that had just ended or sheer disbelief at how her team came back from a 2-0 deficit to reverse sweep the Pelham Panthers on their home court, the emotional celebration proved to be a fitting cap on a wild evening of volleyball.

Chelsea claimed the 3-2 win over Pelham in the area tournament finals on Thursday, Oct. 17 at Pelham High School in dramatic fashion, rallying to dominate the third and fourth sets before beating the Panthers by the narrowest of margins, 16-14, in the fifth and final set.

“You just can’t count out our players,” Chelsea coach Jamie Gill said. “They’re very resilient, and they’re very bought in, and they were willing to make some changes and adjustments, and so I think that they’re just willing to go 100 percent, and until the score tells them they didn’t win, they’re going to just keep going.”

After the teams split the first six points of the first set, Pelham grabbed a hold of the lead with four straight points, including a Camryn McMinn block, to go up 7-3.

Chelsea started cutting into that lead after a timeout with kills from Kaleigh Hall and Lauren Buchanan, eventually making the score 9-8.

That’s when the Panthers responded in a big way, going on a 5-0 run to take a 14-8 lead and force a timeout.

Pelham kept the Hornets at an arm’s length the rest of the way before putting them away with a 5-1 run to end the set and take a 25-16 win.

The Panthers then led wire-to-wire in the second set, winning the first two points and never looking back.

A 4-0 run extended the lead to 12-6 before Chelsea began to respond, but multiple McMinn side out kills kept the Hornets largely quiet until the final points of the set.

Facing a 23-12 deficit, Chelsea won three straight points to make one last stand in the second, but then Londyn Wynn grabbed a kill to go on the serve for the set. Setter Kylee Hester capped the set win off with a kill to claim the 25-15 victory.

The Hornets faced a 2-0 deficit in the match, but they refused to go down without a fight in the third set.

Chelsea began the set on a 4-1 run. Pelham cut the deficit to 6-5, but that led to four straight points from the Hornets to go up 10-5 and force a timeout.

From there, Chelsea commanded much of the set, eventually increasing their lead to 21-13 off back-to-back points before the Panthers used their next timeout.

That stoppage from Robinson proved to be a momentum shifter as Pelham then won five straight points to make the score 21-18.

Chelsea then locked in and went on a 3-0 run to get on set point. However, a service error briefly kept the set alive as it led to a Juliana Bitas ace to cut the deficit to four.

Rudolph sealed the set with a kill to keep the Hornets alive with a 25-20 win.

Chelsea went on an even more dominant run in the fourth set, going on a 14-2 run to begin the frame.

The Hornets took the lead to 16-3 before the Panthers showed some life, forcing the next stretch of points into a back-and-forth affair.

After Pelham made it a nine-point set off back-to-back points, Chelsea won two straight points of its own capped by a Buchanan kill to force a timeout with the lead at 21-10.

From there, the Hornets held off the Panthers and won the final two points to win the fourth set 25-13.

That forced a fifth and decisive set to decide an area champion.

Pelham got the upper hand early in the fifth set, responding to a Buchanan kill with three straight points, including an Arrington solo block and a McMinn ace to go up 5-2.

Chelsea then got back-to-back kills, which were answered by a McMinn kill, but two points alter, the set was tied at 6-6 after a Panthers hitting error.

Pelham grabbed hold of the lead and extended it out to 10-7. The Hornets used a Rudolph kill and a shot that went into the net to make it a one-point game, and after the Panthers responded with a point, Chelsea tied up the set at 11-11.

The Hornets missed a block to give Pelham the 12-11 lead. The Panthers then won the next point to go up 13-11 and trigger a timeout, but a Pelham service error led to a Willett ace to tie the game at 13-13 and force a timeout from Pelham’s side.

Arrington got a block right out of the timeout to put the Panthers on match point. However, Buchanan earned a side-out kill to tie the match at 14-14, meaning the area would be decided by just two points.

A Pelham error put the ball in Buchanan’s hands with Chelsea on match point, and Rudolph ended the rally with a kill to end the marathon and start the celebration of the 16-14 fifth-set win, 3-2 match win and area championship.

After the match, Gill attributed much of the momentum shift after the second set to shifting over Buchanan to match up with McMinn, putting two of the best outsides in the state against each other.

“We knew that Camryn was such a force for their offense, so we felt like we needed to have something that matched that,” Gill said. “And so, we moved Lauren over to the right side to kind of put up a bigger block and just something that was kind of intimidating and just different, a different swing from the right side, different block from the right side, and we feel like that kind of made a little bit of disruption, and then as we built momentum and they lost momentum, everything shifted and there was the reverse sweep.”

She gave props to the entire team for contributing in their own ways and making big plays. To her and the players, the win is the culmination of years of hard work and heartbreak against challenging opponents in both 7A and 6A.

“I think that they were a little bitter on all the losses up until this point,” Gill said. “I think they wanted it so much more because they knew what it felt like to not have it.”

Before the wild match against Pelham, the Hornets defeated Spain Park in the semifinals to reach super regionals.

While Chelsea started out the match on the wrong foot with a service error, the team recovered by winning the next four points capped by an ace to claim the lead. That advantage grew to 8-2 before Spain Park called a timeout to stem the bleeding.

The Jags then rallied back to tie the set at 10-10. The teams then traded the next few points before the Hornets went on another run to take an 18-12 lead.

That proved to be the decisive blow of the set as Spain Park could only get within three points of the lead. Chelsea finished the set with a 3-0 run capped by a Belcher ace to seal the 25-19 first-set win.

The Jags responded in a big way to start the second set. After a 2-2 tie to begin, Spain Park won six of the next seven points to go up 8-3 and force a Hornets timeout.

Chelsea pulled within one on multiple occasions during a tight middle stretch of the set, but the Hornets could never tie or take the lead.

Spain Park then forced a timeout with a 21-17 lead after winning back-to-back points, and the Jags won four of the next six points to take a 25-19 set win of their own.

After the teams split the first four points of the third set, Chelsea won back-to-back points to claim the lead.

Spain Park remained too close for comfort for the next few points before the Hornets won three straight points to go up 15-10, a lead that would eventually grow to 18-12.

The Jags then fought back to win the next four points, cutting the deficit to two before the Hornets called a timeout. Then, Spain Park tied up the set at 21, putting even more pressure on Chelsea.

However, a Jags service error opened the door for the Hornets to finish the job, and they won three straight points after that to claim the 25-21 win and go up 2-1 in the match.

Spain Park took a slim lead to start the set but Chelsea never let the Jags put the lead out of reach. The breakthrough came soon enough as the Hornets rode big plays from Rudolph and Belcher to win four straight points and take a 9-7 lead.

The Jags remained within three during the next few points before eventually going on a short run to tie the set at 16-16.

Chelsea immediately retook the lead though and stood strong in the face of the Spain Park pressure.

The Jags took three straight points to cut the lead to just 23-22 and put the pressure on the Hornets, but Buchanan capped back-to-back Chelsea points with a kill and was mobbed by her teammates after the 25-22 fourth-set win sent the Hornets to super regionals.

In the super regionals, Chelsea will face Theodore on Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 10:15 a.m. at the Cramton Bowl Multiplex.

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