DERRY – Three years ago, Concord Christian Academy didn’t have a varsity volleyball team. Two years ago, the Kingsmen didn’t make the playoffs. This year, Concord Christian played in its first volleyball final since 2001, but the Kingsmen will have to wait a little bit longer to win a title.

No. 2 Concord Christian (16-3) battled the top-seeded, defending champion Inter-Lakes Lakers for every point and challenged them in a way that almost no other team could, but the Lakers (19-0) ultimately came away with another Division III crown with a 25-12, 28-30, 25-21, 25-17 victory at Pinkerton Academy on Saturday.

The pedigree of the two teams vying to be D-III champions couldn’t be more different. Concord Christian, led by its head coach of two years, Doug Oxford, revived its program at the varsity level in 2022 after not having one since 2003. Inter-Lakes on the other hand, has played in six of the last eight D-III title matches, with championships won in 2019 and 2023. Head coach Randy Mattson has been building the Laker volleyball infrastructure for 32 years.

Inter-Lakes came out firing on all cylinders to open the match, taking an early lead and pulling ahead with a couple of 5-0 runs to make quick work of the first set, 25-12, thanks to the hitting of Marissa Anastasio and service of Keira Moynihan. 

Concord Christian never had a lead in that first set, but took early leads in each set that followed.

“They were obviously nervous, a little anxious,” Oxford said of his players in the first set. “But they started settling in and playing their game. That was the main difference. Some of our hitters started to put the ball down, something that they weren’t doing in the first set. Setting better, serving better, all around just playing better, but we couldn’t keep it going in that fourth set.”

Junior Abby Heizer served an ace on the first point of the second set, and senior captain Sadie Thompson had several kills and a pair of big blocks at the net. CCA had a set point with the score 24-23, but the Lakers fought back to tie it and forced 11 more points to be played. Good service from senior Kaylie Christopherson and key hits from senior captain Lylah Shumway helped CCA retake the lead and Heizer emphatically spiked the set-winning point to close out a 30-28 marathon.

The Kingsmen led by as much as 10-5 in the third set and helped a late lead of 21-19 before a 6-0 run gave the Lakers the third set. Similarly in the fourth set, Concord Christian opened with a 5-1 lead before Inter-Lakes eventually drew 11-11 and controlled the latter half of the set to close out the 25-17 victory.

“I thought we played well for most of the match, we just didn’t quite have all the answers that we needed to today,” Oxford said. “We could’ve beaten them, but they can beat us, obviously. We did take a set, we’re pretty excited about that. They’re a very good team.”

Inter-Lakes also beat the Kingsmen in the regular season, 3-1, on Sept. 13. It was the first time the Lakers lost a set all year and one of just six sets they dropped the entire season. Inter-Lakes lost two sets in a 3-2 win in its next match against Farmington, but the Lakers swept all of their matches 3-0 until a 3-2 win over Portsmouth Christian in the semifinals.

To be so competitive against such a dominant team in such a short time speaks to the quality of Concord Christian’s program, despite having such a short history.

The Kingsmen went 5-12 when their program was revived in 2022 and then went 14-6 last year, Oxford’s first as CCA’s coach, to make the semifinals before getting ousted by Inter-Lakes.

“Quite honestly, I think that what’s different about this group of players from most teams that I coach is that they play with purpose,” Oxford said. “They play with purpose to honor God. When you do that, you don’t get as worried about who is in the stands and stuff like that. They play as a team to do that. Part of our motto is to ‘play with purpose.’”

“Honestly, it’s been so fun,” said Thompson, who captained the team along with Shumway and junior Raelyn Taylor. “We’ve worked so hard for the past three years from the bottom up. We worked so hard to get where we are. We have a wonderful coach who’s taught us everything we know and I honestly just believe our hard work is paying off and I am so proud of our team. Even though we didn’t take the win home tonight. We still had a great run and a great season.”