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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

The Spain Park Jaguars found themselves on opposite ends of drama on Tuesday, Sept. 16 and Wednesday, Sept. 17, going from a five-set thriller to a three-set sweep in the course of a day.

Spain Park outlasted a rally from the Mountain Brook Spartans to win 3-2 on Tuesday, Sept. 16 at Mountain Brook High School before defeating the Chelsea Hornets 3-0 on Wednesday, Sept. 17 at Chelsea High School.

The latter win took the Jags to 3-0 in area play and gave them the regular-season series sweep over Chelsea.

Before then though, Spain Park emerged from a tight early battle against Mountain Brook to take a commanding lead in the match.

The Jags and Spartans were knotted up down the stretch in the first set, and they eventually went to extra points tied up at 24-24. From there, Spain Park grabbed hold of the momentum and won the next two points.

That handed the Jags a 26-24 win in the first set and a 1-0 lead in the match, and it proved to be the start of more positives to come.

Spain Park took the momentum from its first set win and parlayed that into another strong performance in the second set. This time, the Jags put distance between them and Mountain Brook before finishing off the set victory.

Spain Park’s 25-17 win in the second set put the visitors just a set win away from sealing the match. However, things took a turn from there.

The Spartans flipped the game on its head in the third set, grabbing the lead over the Jags and keeping the advantage through the final points. Mountain Brook closed out the 25-18 win in the third set to remain alive in the match.

That led to another close set in the fourth set as the Jags had a chance to close down the match. However, the Spartans avoided the threat of extra points and kept their hopes alive for another set.

Mountain Brook eked out a 25-23 win in the fourth set, forcing a fifth and final set to decide the match.

The Spartans made it another close affair in the fifth set, but Spain Park stopped the skid and put the match away from there. The Jags won the fifth set by a score of 15-11 to win the match 3-2.

Spain Park built off that win going into its third area match of the season, a rematch of its area opener against Chelsea.

Like the first match against the Hornets, the Jags had a chance to finish off the match in straight sets. Unlike the first match though, they finished the job.

Spain Park jumped on Chelsea in the first set and got the upper hand on the Hornets with an opening-set win. The Jags took the win by a score of 25-18 to take a 1-0 lead in the match.

The second set ended up being even closer than the first set as Chelsea threatened to steal a set away from Spain Park. In the end though, the Jags finished off the 25-23 win, avoiding a deadlock while putting themselves a set win away from finishing the sweep.

Unlike the first match against Chelsea or the previous day against Mountain Brook, the Jags put their foot on the gas and finished the job in the third set. Spain Park pulled away for a double-digit lead and used it to secure the match win.

In the end, the Jags won in 25-12 fashion to sweep both the match and the season series.

Bea Wiggins and Peyton Harrington tied for the team lead with 11 kills each for Spain Park, and each also had 12 digs. Camdyn Kyes led the Jags in digs with 20 while her sister Cailyn Kyes had 13 digs to go with her 27 assists. Ja’Niyah Mosley also earned seven kills in the straight-set victory.

Spain Park had 13 aces in the Chelsea match, including four from Madden Scott and three apiece from Harrington and Camdyn Kyes. The Jags also had six total blocks as a team with Mosley and Chloe Shumate contributing to three of them and Wiggins and Ayu Sudarsana chipping in on two of them.

Spain Park improved to 16-5 overall and 3-0 in area play. The Jags will host their annual HeffStrong Tournament on Sept. 19 and 20 at the Finley Center in Hoover.

Chelsea will also participate in the HeffStrong Tournament following its drop to 9-10 overall and 1-2 in area play.