“Never Again!”

Those were the words of Lexington High School seniors Megan Classer, Brooke Power and Mary Katherine Waters during Monday’s Class 5A Lower State final.

For the third time in four years, it appeared nemesis Wando High would escape Wildcat Stadium with a state championship berth.

As freshman, they watched Wando’s Lady Warriors score a game-tying goal with less than a minute left and defeat the Lady Wildcats in overtime on penalty kicks.

Lexington avenged that loss a year ago and claimed its first-ever state title in Class 4A. Last year, however, it was deja vu as Wando forced overtime in the final minute and won the first-ever Class 5A Lower State title on a “Golden Goal”.

On Monday, the Lady Wildcats’ appeared headed for a third reliving of their Lower State “nightmare”. Down 1-0 following a second-half goal by senior Susanna Hutto, Wando capitalized on a yellow card penalty accessed to Waters with a Lauren Anhaeuser goal off the free kick to tie the match.

The third time was indeed the charm for Lexington. With 8:41 left in the second overtime, Powers positioned herself near the net and found Waters who sent the ball into the nets for the game-winner.

“We all had faith in our team,” Power said. “We’ve been in this situation, like, 2-3 years. So, we had our doubts. But we battled through it and gave it our 100 percent.”

“Whenever we started overtime, I think we all just pictured that moment last year when we were down and we were losing and whenever we lost, we were all just so upset. So we pictured that moment,” Waters said. “So took that and just said ‘Never Again’”.

“Never again, we weren’t going to let them win again,” Classer said. “It wasn’t going to happen.”

The post-season ‘deja vu’ continues for Lexington (21-1) this Saturday in the Class 5A final at Irmo High School. For the second time in four years, the Upper State finalist opponent is J.L. Mann who advanced after defeating top-ranked Clover 2-1 in overtime.

In that meeting for the Class 4A title, Lexington rallied to tie the match at 1-1 on Waters’ goal off Classer’s assist. After two scoreless overtimes, Classer connected on a shot which hit the crossbar and landed just inside the boundry line for the “Golden Goal” and the 2-1 state title victory.

The two teams also met this season on March 21 in Lexington. Waters scored two, second-half goals in the 3-0 victory.

Looking to join Lexington at W.C. Hawkins Stadium are defending Class 4A champion Chapin, top-ranked Gray Collegiate and River Bluff. The Eagles played host Tuesday to Region 5-4A rival A.C. Flora in the Class 4A final.

The winner would face either Eastside or Greenville at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

In Class 2A, the War Eagles played host to St. Joseph in their first-ever Upper State title appearance. The winner would face either Academic Magnet or Bamberg-Ehrhardt at 4 p.m. Friday.

For the fourth consecutive year, River Bluff played host to defending Class 5A champion Wando in the Lower State finals. Like Lexington, the Gators has lost two of the three meetings to the Warriors and the lone win in 2016 catapulted them to their first state title in Class 4A.

They faced a Warriors’ team which entered the contest riding a state-record 53-game winning streak. Wando also handed River Bluff its first-ever loss in the Capital City Cup, winning 4-0.

Wildcats vs. Gators II

The River Bluff and Lexington baseball teams also experienced their share of “deja vu” on Wednesday.

For the second straight year, the two teams faced each other for the Class 5A Lower State title. This time, the venue was “The Swamp” after the Gators advanced to the Lower State final following a 4-1 win over the Wildcats on Saturday.

Lexington looked to accomplish what River Bluff did a year ago to reach the state finals. After losing to the Wildcats in the winner’s bracket, the Gators defeated Dutch Fork in an elimination game and routed Lexington twice on their homefield to win the Lower State title.

Lexington rallied to defeat Wan-do 5-3 in Monday’s elimination game and set up Wednesday’s rematch.

This did not surprise head coach Mark Bonnette who expected a third meeting or possibly more with his archrival.

“That’s a great team over there,” he said. “It would not surprise me at all if we see them right here on Wednesday. We’ve had absolute wars with them. They’re great coaches, great players, so I fully expect (to face them) Wednesday.”

Several semifinals in baseball, soccer and softball took place Tuesday and Wednesday in Chronicle Country. Check for the results at www.lexingtonchronicle.com.