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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

MOBILE – The Thompson Warriors made the most of their day down south with a runner-up finish in St. Paul’s Episcopal School’s Battle for Old Shell Road tournament.

Thompson beat the Robertsdale Bears, Faith Academy Rams, Glenwood School Gators and St. Luke’s Episcopal Wildcats en route to a final showdown with Bowling Green, which the Warriors lost.

Thompson’s only other loss came in a pool play match against a fellow Class 7A foe in the Fairhope Pirates.

The Warriors started off the tournament in dominant fashion with a big win over Robertsdale. Thompson rolled to an early lead against the Bears and turned it into a 25-10 victory.

From there, the Warriors kept their foot on the gas and eventually won the second set by a score of 25-14.

Thompson carried that momentum into a showdown with Glenwood that also saw it take control early. The Warriors established themselves as the early favorite thanks to a first-set lead and finished the job with a 25-17 win in the set.

Thompson used that first-set win to set the stage for a big second set as the Warriors tripled up the Gators’ point total ahead of the sweep. Thompson went on to win the second set in 25-7 fashion.

However, the Warriors hit a speed bump in their final match of pool play against Fairhope. Facing a massive step up in competition from their first two matches, Thompson held on well against the Pirates but couldn’t get over the hump in a 25-20 opening-set loss.

Fairhope once again had the upper hand in the second set and finished off the match with a 25-19 victory.

The Warriors faced off against Faith Academy for the first match of bracket play and found considerable success early on. Thompson got control in the first set and grabbed the 1-0 lead in the match with a 25-16 win.

That changed in the second set when the Rams rallied to make the second set a much more competitive affair. Faith sent the second set to extra points with a 24-24 tie, and the two teams traded the next two points to leave them in a 25-25 deadlock.

After that though, the Warriors buckled down and finished the job by winning back-to-back points to seal the 27-25 win in the second set and sweep the match.

Thompson went on to face St. Luke’s in the semifinals in hopes of advancing to the championship match.

The Warriors posted one of their most dominant performances of the entire tournament in the match, grabbing hold of the match with a 25-7 win in the first set. That proved to only be the start of more domination to come, and Thompson kept its momentum going with a 25-11 win in the second set.

The sweep put the Warriors in the finals up against Kentucky’s Bowling Green Purples, and it proved to be the end of the road for Thompson. The Warriors fell behind in the first set and went on to lose it by a score of 25-18, putting them behind the ball going into the second set.

The Purples then went on to win the second set in 25-20 fashion to sweep the match and take the tournament championship.

The 4-2 tournament record improved Thompson to 23-10 overall going into the final week of the season. The Warriors will travel to the Chelsea Hornets on Tuesday, Oct. 7 at 5 p.m. to start the week.