First Ptesbyterian wins third straight SCISA AAA volleyball state championship
Crusaders rally from Game 1 loss to beat Florence Christian 3-1
Columbia -- First Presbyterian Academy at Shannon Forest rolled through a volleyball
regular season packed with 45 matches and looked to close out its third straight SCISA AAA state
championship Tuesday night at the Cardinal Newman High School gymnasium. A hungry, young
Florence Christian School squad looking for a state crown of its own made the Crusaders earn it.
Led by senior outside hitter Jada Porter, the Eagles rallied to win the first set 25-23. While
Porter pestered the Crusaders throughout the next three sets, they managed to pull away to win
the next two sets 25-19 and 25-15. First Presbyterian held off a fierce rally throughout the fourth
set to win 26-24 and close out a 3-1 victory—and a third straight state title.
“First of all,p I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the opportunity to coach these
girls to go against Florence Christian,” Crusaders head coach David Thompson said while also
congratulating Eagles head coach Denise Carter and Porter. “Denise has got a great program,
and Jada’s a phenomenal player, She gave us difficulty all night long, but we just kept saying,
‘Next ball, next ball.’ We have amnesia, move on to the next point, nothing we can do about a great
play by Jada, we’ve got to turn around and execute on our end.”
First Presbyterian finishes the season 42-6. Playing that many matches in the season helped his
team through adversity such as that seen in the fourth set, Thompson said.
“We played in three public school tournaments, we saw several teams that were probably the
caliber of Florence, a couple that were a little bit better,” he said. “So, I do think that did give us a
little bit of an edge as far as being in a war of attrition, being able to fight through those points at
the end and then also we’ve seen that level of play.”
Seeing 47 games worth of competition leading up to the final game helped the Crusaders keep
their composure, especially when their opponent took an early advantage.
Florence Christian took charge of the first set as libero Bailey Johnson served three points to
make it 21-17. After that run the Eagles stayed one step ahead until closing out the 25-23 win.
The second set was all Crusaders, as they scored five points as Kaya Thompson served and
jumped to a 9-3 lead. Florence Christian rallied to within 11-10, but First Presbyterian jumped
ahead as libero Bryson McGrath served the team to a 15-10 lead shortly afterward, and the
Crusaders went on to win the set 25-19.
Likewise, in the third set the Crusaders jumped to an 8-3 lead and later stretched it to a 20-11
advantage in spite of two Florence Christian timeouts. First Presbyterian won the set 25-15 and
had plenty of momentum going into the fourth set.
The Crusaders took a 9-4 lead, then a 12-7 lead, but Florence Christian kept on nibbling until
Johnson served the Eagles to a 19-19 tie. From that point First Presbyterian and Florence
Christian exchanged point for point, including Porter’s kill that evened the score at 24-24.
Eagles server Demi Greene failed to get a point across, giving the Crusaders a 25-24 advantage.
Florence Christian failed to return Carter Stephen’s serve, which brought the game to an end
and gave the title to First Presbyterian.
“I thought we did a great job of getting the ball to Carter late,” Thompson said about the last
moments of the fourth set. “Carter was front row, she’s one of our kill leaders, her and Avery
MacMeccan and Peyton Thompson, and that rotation Carter happened to be front row, and the
goal was to try to get the ball to Carter front row, try to side out, and see if we could win that last
point.”
The Eagles, who finished with a 24-10 record, fell short of a state championship, but Carter said
her girls had worked hard and achieved beyond all expectations.
“We just had some unforced errors here and there that put us behind too far, but all in all I’m
proud of the girls and the way they played,” Carter said. “Jada, she took us as far as we could go,
and Bailey was phenomenal too as our libero. She’s young and she’s going to be around for a
little bit. I’m proud of her and the way she carried us. No one expected us to be here.”
Thompson may not have expected the Eagles to have been his team’s opponent, but the way he
talked about the final set after the match was in the books, he seemed relieved that his team
found a way to win.
“That was a heck of a match by them, for a state championship match, for a Set 4, for that
thing to go extras, 26-24, Florence has got the heart of a champion,” he said. “I’ve got all the
respect for Denise and for Jada. She is a phenomenal player. We had to find a way to gut it out
there in the end.”
