By Jared Brush ’15 | Staff Writer

Even with the big Eisenhower crowd, the volleyball team was able to control their nerves and leave with a huge victory last Tuesday, bringing their record to 22-10-4 as the season dwindles.

Coming into this game, Eisenhower was in first place in the league and had already beat South on the road. South needed to win this game to catch up to Eisenhower and share first place, head coach Kevin Nugent said.

“We knew we had to hunt them down and beat them,” Nugent said. “We couldn’t rely on anyone else to do it so this was a critical win.”

After losing the first game at home 3-0 against Eisenhower, preparation was key to successfully learning how to compete in this game. The girls watched video and learned from their mistakes, Alexis Kohut ’17 said, who had twelve kills and five aces.

“We studied film from the first match to fix what we had been struggling with,” Kohut said. “We worked a lot on serving and defense to prepare.”

Zoning out the crowd, the girls controlled the first two sets with ease and won them 25-21 and 25-17. A shocked Eisenhower watched as South tallied two games in a row.

“We had a lot of energy and came out very strong,” Carina Bertakis ’15 said. “Ike wasn’t expecting us to be that fired up which made them break down fast.”

Winning the first two sets of the match was South’s plan coming into the game, Nugent said.

“We knew that going in we were going to have to win the first two games,” Nugent said. “If we did that, we knew we could win the next one of three.”

After the first two wins, Eisenhower came back and rallied a 25-16 in the third set. South became tired and deflated after losing consecutive points,  Izzy Murphy ’15 said, who had 18 kills.

“We started to get down on ourselves when we started to lose a few points,” Murphy said. “We can’t let a few points affect our game.”

Having faced Eisenhower before, South knew that they would not quit after going down two sets. Eisenhower stepped up their game knowing they couldn’t afford to lose another set, Bertakis said.

“In a game like that, you are going to get that team’s best effort,” Nugent said. “The most important thing was that we captured a lot of momentum in the end of the third set.”

With the momentum, South came out strong in the fourth set and 10-4 lead. Still, Eisenhower didn’t quit and came back tying the set 12-12. The points went back and forth but South was able to break away and win the set 25-21.

With this win South is tied with Eisenhower in first place. They have two more challenging league games coming up against Chippewa and Stevenson, Nugent said.

“Going to Stevenson is not going to be anything easy,” Nugent said. “Chippewa is getting better every match.”

With high hopes looking forward into the season and the playoffs, the team is gaining momentum at the right time of the season, Murphy said.

“I think we have a good shot at winning the league,” Murphy said. “This is a strong team; we play well together, and it seems like we are peaking at the right time.”