THREE-PEAT: Edgewood Academy volleyball wins state championship over Chambers

For the third consecutive season, the Edgewood Academy volleyball team has won the state championship.

Edgewood Academy beat Chambers Academy, 3-2 (24-26, 25-15, 22-15, 25-12, 15-7), in a thrilling AISA Class AA state championship on Thursday afternoon at the Cramton Bowl Multiplex in Montgomery.

Edgewood Academy came back from down, 2-1, in the match, to stun the Lady Rebels. It is the third consecutive state championship for Edgewood Academy and the second consecutive for head coach David DeLozier. 

“What I’ve preached to these girls all year is just to take it one point at a time,” DeLozier said. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing and if they’re really good or having a good day. If we can steady ourselves and play our game and our standard, then I like our chances. I’m proud of the way we found a way to win.”

The two teams traded the first two sets, with Chambers winning the first set, 26-24, and Edgewood Academy winning the second, 25-15.

Edgewood looked to carry that momentum into the third set, and led, 20-12, midway through before Chambers called a timeout and grabbed momentum.


Using a 8-0 run out of the timeout to spark the comeback, Chambers Academy finished the third set on a 13-2 run to take a commanding 2-1 lead over Edgewood and put the Wildcats’ backs against the wall.


Despite being on the brink of elimination, DeLozier’s team didn’t falter and steamrolled in the fourth set to tie the match, 2-2. The Wildcats won the fourth set, 25-12, after blowing the eight-point lead in the third set.

“People talk about phrases being cliche, but I really do mean it when I say take it one point at a time,” DeLozier said. “Winning by eight or losing by five, it’s still 0-0 and you play that point and win that point. I really like that mentality. As we showed, it can get away from us or we can get on a steamroll and cruise. We have to maintain our standard and stay consistent and I’m proud of the way we found that late in the match.”

Karlee Mainor started the set with back-to-back kills, and after going back and forth, Lindsey Brown put the Wildcats up for good with consecutive service aces that put Edgewood up, 12-7.

Edgewood went on to push its lead to 16-7, then used a 6-0 run late to finish off the set, 25-12, to set up a decisive fifth set.

“We all decided we needed to work together as a team,” Brown said of the fourth set. “I got on to them because we were all saying how we didn’t have energy the whole time or have the mindset that we wanted to win. At that moment of time, their crowd was loud. We ended up staying on our team and on our side, and we ended up succeeding.”

In the decisive fifth set, Chambers jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead after a kill and two Edgewood hits into the net.

But once again, the Wildcats fought back and took the lead, 5-3, and never gave it back up. Avery White got the scoring started with a kill, and Mainor followed up with two kills to put Edgewood up, 6-4.

After a bad Chambers hit and a block from Mainor, Edgewood led 8-4. Later in the set, up 9-6, Edgewood scored five consecutive points to get to match point. Madison Martin had two kills, Brown added a kill, and Jaylyn Strength had back-to-back aces to put Edgewood up, 14-7.

With the game on match point, two timeouts were called consecutively and DeLozier took the chance to honor his two seniors, Emma Weldon and Molly Snow.

Both players stepped onto the court while the rest of the team stepped off, and the team, parents and student section alike all cheered for their seniors. Only needing one point to clinch the state championship, both seniors stayed on the court as play resumed.

On the first play following the two timeouts, Martin hit a kill straight into the court on the Chambers side to give Edgewood the 15-7 fifth set win and the 3-2 championship win.

“That was a really tough game, and I think this team is something special,” Weldon said. “This is my last game ever, so it’s rough, but it was really, really fun. That moment with me and Molly was very special. It just shows how much this team really treasures us seniors and how close we are.”

Weldon, Brown and Mainor were all named to the All-Tournament team.

Mainor finished the five-set match with 13 kills, 2 aces and 4 blocks. Brown had 13 kills and 2 aces.