The Slidell-Dominican volleyball state final created a bit of history for the winning team and coach

Slidell lived up to its top-seeded billing and won a volleyball state championship Saturday at the Cajundome in Lafayette.

Against four-time returning state champion Dominican, Slidell won the first two sets and overcame a third-set defeat to secure the first volleyball state championship for the school since 1997.

Senior Demoni Lewis and junior Addyson Dowell put down plenty of the points needed in the final set to build an early lead and close out a 25-17, 25-20, 23-25, 25-15 victory that gave coach Danny Tullis his seventh state championship.

Slidell became the first Louisiana public school to win a Division I volleyball state title since Tullis coached Fontainebleau to a championship in 2011. His other five crowns came after that while at Pope John Paul II.

The loss for Dominican ended a 10-year run of Catholic League dominance that also included the six consecutive championships won by Mount Carmel.

Lewis and Dowell combined for 27 kills, and it was Dowell who earned the outstanding player award. Lewis had nine blocks. Other contributors included junior setter Ava Labat with 45 assists along with senior Regan Robinson and junior Isabella Spelling each with a strong defensive presence in the back row.

“The focus of this season really started when I came here two years ago and I told them they had the same things that everybody else has, just not the belief and not the understanding,” Tullis said. “But they started to believe in themselves in the way that I believed that they could win.”

Tullis noted how Slidell “got real close last year” to winning a championship but that “Dominican was such a machine” when those teams met in the semifinals. Dominican won that match in four sets.

Dominican coach Jessica Chatellier said her team game-planned for Slidell based what she saw from previous matches, including Slidell’s four-set win against Dominican during the regular season.

“I think some other players came in and contributed things that we really just didn’t have an answer for,” Chatellier said. “They also, defensively, they were lights-out. We were hitting shots, and they were making great plays back there.”

Dowell, a middle blocker, scored many of her points from the right side, which was part of the changed game-plan to catch Dominican off guard.

“We had our middle going right-side and our outsides going middle and all these different things, and the setter hitting an all this different stuff,” said Dowell, who put down five kills to help Slidell out to a 7-1 lead on the way to building a double figure lead at 16-6.

Dominican played at its best in the third set. Successive aces from senior Zoie Mithcell put her team ahead 6-5 and senior middle Mihley Clayton (11 kills, two blocks) helped the lead grow from there. Other contributors included junior Mollie Baker (24 assists, 17 digs) and senior libero Lauren Pipitone (42 digs).

“We had so many highs, so many lows, but we just kept climbing, kept going and pushed to get to this point,” Pipitone said. “I’m just so proud of my team and everyone.”