Confetti showered the Charles Henderson Lady Trojans Monday night when they knocked off Rehobeth to claim the Class 5A Area 3 championship.

It took five sets, but the Trojans clinched the title when they knocked off the Rebels 11-25, 25-17, 16-25, 25-17 and 15-12.

“It’s really special,” said head coach Sonny Kirkpatrick. “I am really proud with what they accomplished. We have been working since June since this moment. Being down late in Game 5, they really showed they had some guts. We were far from clean, but Rehobeth played really well. It was a great match.”

In a must-win situation in game four, the Trojans stormed out to an eight-point lead. They were able to hold off the charging Rebels who got to within three at 19-16.

The Trojans found themselves down early in the final game of the match. The Rebels scored five of the first six points of the game, leaving them 10 points from a championship. From that point on, the Trojans outscored the Rebels 14-7 to clinch the championship,

“Being down 2-1, we haven’t been in that situation before,” Kirkpatrick said. “We have come a long way in a year. I don’t know if we were able to do that last year. I am really proud. They worked really hard and they earned the opportunity to be able to celebrate.”

Samira Moore finished the championship match with 21 kills. Mykyia Milton and Sydney Watson had seven, Anyla Shipman had six and Matti Owens had five. Moore finished with two aces and Jaleigh Owens had two.

The Lady Trojans won their first match of the day in straight sets 25-9, 25-20 and 25-7 to vault them into the area final.

“I thought we executed our offense really well,” said head coach Sonny Kirkpatrick. “I thought we served really tough and it was nice to get a win in front of the big crowd that we had.”

The Trojans had a big crowd in the first match thanks in large part to the early start. The 1:00 p.m. tip allowed the Trojans to play in front of their student body. Kirkpatrick believed the large crowd made an impact in the match.

“It was fun to get a chance to play in front of our home students,” Kirkpatrick said. “We had a great crowd. It was probably our biggest crowd ever in terms of volleyball at Charles Henderson. I’m going to guess over 300 people. It was fun. We gave them some good stuff to cheer about.”

Moore led the Trojans with 11 kills, while Tanner Moore, Milton and Owens all had four. Reece Moore had nine aces and Ragan Hudson had five.

The Trojans will now wait to play the runner up of Area 1 between Faith Academy or Satsuma.

“We have some things to clean up,” Kirkpatrick said. “Whenever we play hard, we have a chance. We just have to play hard all the time.”