DAPHNE, Alabama – The Battle by the Bay lived up to it’s title Saturday at Bayside Academy when the hosting Lady Admirals, ranked No. 1 in 3A, and the No. 1 ranked 6A Dirty Dozen of McGill-Toolen Catholic made it to the championship match in the Gold Division finals.

The two state powerhouses had met and split earlier this year at McGill-Toolen before the face off at Moorer Gym where Bayside took a hard fought comeback win 21-25, 25-14, 15-13 in the title match.

Bayside took the early lead, 5-0 in game one, but the Dirty Dozen battled back to tie it at 8-8. Both teams traded one-point leads and ties until McGill-Toolen broke away to a game point 24-16 advantage.

The Admirals rallied for five straight but no more. The home team picked it up a level in game two for a solid win, but then had to re-arm for battle as the Lady Ads trailed Mc-T by 9-6 in the third game. But senior Virginia Pittman then released a barrage of un-passable serves to turn the tide.

“We played better - I thought that run of points they scored on us in set one was mainly why we lost set one,” said Bayside Academy coach Ann Schilling. “We played more consistently in set two and three — we were down 9-6 in set three and came back and won. I thought we served more aggressively in set two and 3 three and we didn’t give up any strings of points.”

Schilling said she knew it would be a battle.

“It’s always exciting to play McGill,” she said. “Of course for us the big thing is to measure ourselves against the best teams. They (The Dirty Dozen) are always good and they are always out to beat us. So the atmosphere (is usually) like a championship match.”

Gabby Deshotel had 19 kills and six digs, Pittman added six kills, three blocks and five digs to the two big aces and Sydney Chandler had 33 assists and five digs in the finals against McGill-Toolen.

The Dirty Dozen’s Mary Alex Barter led her team nine kills, Danielle Harbin added four kills and Resi Rogers picked up 13 assists.

Bayside made it to the finals with a 25-21, 25-10 semifinal win over third-ranked 4A Madison County and a 25 -16, 25-14 win over Enterprise in the quarterfinals. The Admirals emerged from pool play undefeated with two-set wins over Fairhope, Baldwin County and St. Luke’s Episcopal and a three-set win over top-ranked 2A Montgomery Academy 25-17, 23-25, 15-10.

Total combined-stat leaders for the tournament for Bayside were Pittman with 16 aces, 51 kills, 11 blocks; Deshotel's seven aces, 67 kills, 11 blocks; Jhalen Caffey with eight aces, 29 kills, four blocks, Morgan Dulaney with 14 aces, 38 kills, seven blocks; Chandler with a total of 12 aces and 179 assists and Madison Matthews with 36 digs.

The Dirty Dozen beat 6A No. 3 Mountain Brook in the quarterfinals 25-19, 25-16 and defeated 5A No. 2 and defending state champion St. Paul’s in the semifinals with a 25-17, 25-21 triumph.

Robertsdale made it to the final four of the Gold Division, Baldwin County and Daphne each made it to the semifinals of the Silver Division, Cottage Hill Christian won the Silver bracket with a win over Baker in the finals.