LACONIA – Senior outside hitter Lylah Shumway spiked the last ball to send her team, the Concord Christian Academy Kingsmen, to the Division III volleyball championship for the first time since the program was restarted in 2022.

Shumway’s game-winning hit clinched a 25-17, 25-17, 25-21 victory for No. 2 CCA (16-2) over No. 3 Trinity (15-3) in straight sets. The Kingsmen will play top-ranked Inter-Lakes (18-0) at Pinkerton Academy on Saturday at noon for the title.

“It feels so exciting. This is for our school. We're a small school. Our school is just starting to get on the map,” said Shumway. “So it feels awesome to bring it home to our school not only for us because we're so hard working. So we're excited and we're ready to make history for our school.”

The Kingsmen last made it to the state championship in 2001 where they won in two sets over Laconia Christian. It was only fitting that Thursday’s semifinal win was played at Laconia High School to bring them back. 

“We had three goals this year, as far as winning and getting somewhere. It was get back to the semis, goal one, and we did that. Win the semis and get into the finals. I said we have accomplished two of our three goals,” said Kingsmen head coach Doug Oxford. “All right, we have one more, and we got to play. Then we got to do that one on Saturday.”

Trinity and CCA did not face each other during the regular season. Still, they ended with the same record, and both fell to the only undefeated team in the division, the Inter-Lakes Lakers, who defeated No. 4 Portsmouth Christian in five sets in the second semifinal.

This semifinal would serve as a litmus test for the winner’s chances of beating the Lakers in the final, and the Kingsmen proved their quality with a three-set sweep.

“They played as a team. They didn’t let things get them down. They just played through everything, and they played with range as far as they’re hitting,” said Oxford. “So I was thrilled with the way they played tonight.”

The Kingsmen carried their momentum with good serves and strong play at the net to stay ahead of the Pioneers throughout the first two sets.

Shumway played well alongside senior setter Abby Owens and middle blocker Sadie Thompson to generate points at the net. They creatively placed spikes and dumps into gaps between Pioneer lines and across the court.

Thompson came up with huge blocks throughout the game, particularly in the third set after Trinity made adjustments to their defensive posture and began to return more serves and rallies. 

The first two sets were comfortably won but in the third set the Pioneers’ junior Sophia Romano served four-straight aces to go ahead one point, 10-9.

All too often, teams ahead two sets will become overconfident and drop the third, so Concord Christian’s head coach Oxford called a timeout to calm the nerves and ensure the team does not let Trinity pull ahead.

“I just told them that they need to play as a team and do what we do, move in the lanes we do, for serve-receive, talk,” he said.

After the timeout, Romano hit the net, and a lucky break saw the Kingsmen break the serve.  Good serves by Shumway, Owens and junior Abby Heizer saw the Kingsmen pull ahead, 17-13, aided by good plays at the net by Thompson.

Toward the end of the third set, Thompson gained four points on her serve to go up, 22-15. Her next serve hit the net and Trinity clawed back to, 24-19, and the Kingsmen had two match points they could not convert.

Finally, a lob set by Owens opened Shumway up on the left side of the net and she spiked it straight down with force to win the game.

“The key mentally is they've grown up as a team. They play together as a team,” said Oxford.

Now, all that stands in between the Kingsmen and their first championship in 23 years is No. 1 Inter-Lakes, a team that beat Concord Christian 3-1 in the Kingmen’s second match of the season on Sept. 13. 

“I think our key is just keeping the ball in play. They're a good team, we took a set from them early in the season,” said Shumway. “But I think we work hard. We have no expectations, we’re there to win and work hard so we just got to block their middles put somebody in their face, and the game should be ours.”

Alexander Rapp can be reached at arapp@cmonitor.com