BIRMINGHAM – The Thompson Warriors made history from the moment they stepped onto the floor at Bill Harris Arena on Thursday, Oct. 30. By playing in the state championship, they'd officially gone further than not only any Thompson team in the Judy Green era, but since 2003.  The Warriors knew they faced a stiff challenge in the form of the No. 1-ranked McGill-Toolen Catholic Dirty Dozen, the 7A state champion each of the last three years and winners of 40-straight matches. Even in the face of the best team in the state, Thompson never went down without a fight, rallying for a marathon second set win and pulling back from a deficit in each set. While the Warriors lost 3-1, it was a big step forward for the program and a statement to the rest of Alabama on the biggest stage possible.  "This has probably been the most enjoyable journey that I've had as a coach since I've been at Thompson," Green said. "This group of young women have brought joy every day to the practice floor. They brought joy in the locker room. They've brought joy during competition, and through that process, we grew into a team that had one fiber running through all of us. And you might bend us here and there, but you're never going to break us. So I'm extremely proud of them in what they've accomplished and how they represented Thompson High School and the city of Alabaster."  The two teams were as tight as expected through the early stretch as neither team gained a significant advantage. After Thompson held a 7-6 lead, McGill rallied to take the 10-7 lead off a 4-0 run. That forced a Warriors timeout to try and stop the momentum.  The lead grew to 13-8 before a service error put Kenzly Foote on serve. Maddy Henderson then secured a kill ahead of Thompson making it a 13-11 game.  However, the Dozen got a side-out kill along the sideline to kick off another 4-0 run, extending the lead to 17-11 and drawing out the Warriors' second timeout.  McGill extended the lead to 21-13 before Thompson rallied to get back in the set. The Warriors forced a timeout after a Henderson kill and Olivia Greene ace fueled a 4-1 run, and after that, they stayed alive twice on set point to make it 24-20.  The Dozen finished the job from there with a kill for a 25-20 lead, and they picked up where they left off in the second set.  McGill went up 7-2 on a block to force a timeout, and that lead only grew to 10-3 and then 13-5 before Thompson called timeout.  The Warriors started to make their move shortly after the break. They clawed back from down six with an 8-2 run to tie the set up at 16-16. That kicked off a back-and-forth stretch which saw Thompson take its first lead of the match at 18-17.  The Warriors then came back from down 19-18 to get to set point on a 6-1 run. However, the Dozen secured four-straight points to force extra points at 24-24.  Thompson had three chances to close out the match from there, but two side-out kills and a missed block kept McGill in it. The Warriors then battled off two set points with kills before making their move.  Riley Lingo put away a big kill to get back to set point, and Ada Hasenbein rose up the middle to block the winning point, ending the second set in a 31-29 win to tie the match at 1-1.  While the Warriors won the first two points of the third set to keep the momentum going, the Dozen won the next four points to take the lead, and Thompson had to call timeout down 7-3.  McGill continued to keep the Warriors at an arm's length until Thompson cut it down to 13-10. Back-to-back points from the Dozen changed things, and the Warriors regrouped again.  A service error out of the timeout broke the momentum and the serve, and Henderson reeled off two of the next three points to cut it to 15-14. That preceded a 5-0 run from McGill to extend it to 20-14, but Lingo and Jayla Green came up with points to force another timeout with the deficit at 20-17.  The Dozen kept the Warriors at bay though, and despite needing three set points to get it, they secured the kill up the middle to win the third set 25-21 and go up 2-1.  Just like the third set, Thompson went up 3-1 to start the fourth set but soon fell behind 7-5 on a 4-0 run by McGill. The Warriors kept it close and tied it back up at 9-9 and 10-10, the latter with a Henderson solo block.  The Dozen peeled away on a 7-1 run though and went up 17-11. Thompson briefly got back within three thanks to a Harlan block and Lingo ace, but that was as close as the Warriors would get for the rest of the match.  McGill emerged from a flurry of service errors by both times to win the final three points, and a missed Thompson block sealed the 25-17 result and the fourth-straight state title for the Dirty Dozen.  Merriweather, Henderson and Foote all made the All-Tournament Team after standout championship performances. Merriweather earned 12 kills and three digs while hitting +.281, Henderson got into double figures in three categories with 10 kills, 18 assists, 11 digs and three total blocks and Foote secured a team-high 18 digs in her final high school match.  In addition, Jayla Green finished with 13 assists, five digs and four kills, Hasenbein earned four kills and Greene secured four digs.  After the match, coach Green gave credit to McGill for controlling the ball well and outplaying her team in crucial moments.  "McGill's just good," Green said. "Their ball control is exceptional. Very few balls hit the ground. It takes a lot to out-dig us, out-defend us, because we've done that to teams all season long. But today, McGill was always able to do that with us."  She went on to add that the fighting spirit stemmed from a deep bond that they formed even back in strength and conditioning last January, putting an elimination in the area semifinals behind them and rallying around each other.  It's that mentality that Foote said powered them through their marathon battles on the road to the title game, including a four-set win over Bayside and five-set victory over Hewitt-Trussville just the day before.  "All year, we've just had this fire inside us, and it doesn't matter who's on the side of the net. Our goal is to beat them," Foote said. "That doesn't ever change with any team. It didn't change today, they outplayed us. Every single ball, we were locked in the whole time. They got away, we came back. We came back from insane point deficits like today, yesterday, came back in the five-set match yesterday to Hewitt. We just don't stop. That's really been our thing. Just everyone together, no matter what."  As she and the rest of the seven seniors reflect on their journey over the past four years, Foote couldn't be more grateful than to go out the way she did, representing Alabaster at the state championship alongside her volleyball sisters.  "This team's just truly my best friends, like absolute joy," Foote said. "Everyone's there to cheer each other up. It means the world. I mean, to get to play my last match for my school for the championship, my best friends, is just the best possible outcome of it.  "I'm so proud of us. They deserve that win. They deserve that. We deserve where we were. So, just the joy and the love with our team, it just means so much."

Read more at: https://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2025/10/30/thompson-goes-down-swinging-in-first-state-championship-appearance-since-2003/