Lexington falls short

PELHAM - A year ago, Addison watched as Lexington celebrated the Class 2A state championship.

This year it was a reversal of roles as the Bulldogs were the ones doing the celebrating and Lexington was left holding the runner-up trophy.

Addison completed a dominant run to the state championship Thursday morning with a 3-0 win against two-time defending state champ Lexington. For the Bulldogs (69-3), it was their fourth victory in four tries against Lexington.

"This is awesome," tournament MVP Sadie Beem said. "I've been playing with these two seniors since I was little-bitty and I'm glad we won it for them this year."

With the No. 1 and No. 3 teams playing for a title, the match was expected to be close, and it was except for the second game as Addison prevailed 25-17, 25-13, 27-25.

Lexington coach Melissa Hammond said the teams reversed roles from last year.

"Last year, we had four pretty dominant hitters," she said. "Addison had four strong hitters this year."

Addison concentrated on shutting down Taylor Chapman and Shea Toner, Lexington's leading hitters, and that strategy proved effective. Also, the Bulldogs kept moving the ball around to different hitters that made it difficult for Lexington's single blockers to contest them at the net.

"I just go with the hot hand," setter Kali Lake said.

"We try to make their single blocker run from antenna to antenna," Addison coach Pam Wilkins said. "We have some nice hitters and we don't have to rely on just one person."

Kaitlin Parker led Addison with 14 kills, while Kaydi Langley had 12. Beem finished with seven kills as Lake had 39 assists.

Chpaman finished with 10 kills for Lexington and Toner had five. Setter Lindsay Greer had 14 assists, well below her season's average.

Addison had five aces in the first game, including two in a game-ending 8-1 run.

"At times their jump serve gave us problems," Hammond said.

Addison jumped in front 7-1 and never was threatened in the second game.

Needing a win to stay alive in the third game, Lexington pulled ahead 20-16 as the Bears finally seemed to find some rhythm on offense. But Wilkins used a time-out to settle her team.

"I just told them to go out and win it," she said. "We needed that game badly. We needed to take it when we had momentum."

Addison fought off three games points and took a 25-24 lead on a kill by Kaitlin Parker.

Toner tied it with a kill, but Addison won the next two points to clinch the state title.

Hammond was disappointed, but took the loss in stride.

"These girls - Chelsea Williams, Shea and Taylor - have had a great career," she said. "They made it here every year. It's been great."

Gregg Dewalt can be reached at 740-5748 or gregg.dewalt@TimesDaily.com.