By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
Sylvan Hills avenged one of its earlier season losses Tuesday night, beating North Pulaski 3-1 at home in a return match from a five-set loss in the first conference roundrobin.
The final three games of the match were all nailbiters, which is becoming the norm when the Lady Bears play the Lady Falcons.
Sylvan Hills coach Harold Treadway believes there could be a little extra emphasis when these two teams meet.
“Well, we’re so close,” Treaday said. “We’re part of the same district. All the kids are friends. I try to not put any more emphasis on one game than another, but I think there might be something to this becoming a rivalry.”
North Pulaski got out to a small early lead in game one, but the Lady Bears took control and won the opener 25-18. From that point, it was back and forth.
Game two saw several lead changes with neither team pulling out in front. The Lady Bears were able to grab a small lead late then trade points until winning 25-22.
The third game was more of the same, only the Lady Falcons ended up on top 23-25.
Treadway has seen his team blow 2-0 leads this year, and tried to rally his playerss heading into game four.
“I told them we don’t want to go five games with this bunch,” Treadway said. “We really needed to focus, go out and grab an early lead and try to stop their momentum.”
Treadway’s pep talk didn’t work.
The Lady Falcons came out hot and took control of game four from the start, eventually pulling out to a commanding 20-12 lead. Treadway called timeout to try and stop the onslaught. This time things did change, as North Pulaski started down a familiar road of losing big leads late.
Sylvan Hills broke serve after the timeout to make it 20-13. Val Jarrett then served four straight points to 20-17 before the Lady Falcons broke back.
The visiting team only served once and the Sylvan Hills service break made it 21-18. Darin Flippo then served two in a row to make it 21-20.
North Pulaski then got three points before another break made it 24-21. That’s when sophomore Michelle Sorensen served five straight, including one ace, to bring the Lady Bears back for the win. On match point, Senior Zaneb Rehman got a kill from the middle of the front row that put a stamp on the victory.
“It was pretty much just straight down,” Treadway said. “I’ve been wanting her to be more aggressive at the net so that was really good to see.”
Overall Treadway was very pleased with his team’s performance.
“We started out playing one of our better games of the year,” Treadway said. “Our passes were really crisp and we were getting a lot of good swings on the ball. We knew they were going to come back. They’re having trouble this year just like we are, but that’s a pretty good team. The girls just dug deep you know. They got in a hole, but they came out of it and I’m proud of them for that.”
The Lady Bears lost their second match of the week, falling in three games to CAC by scores of 25-16, 25-16 and 25-15.
The week’s results leaves Sylvan Hills 3-6 in conference play and 5-9 overall. The Lady Bears are in fifth place in the conference standings, but trails CAC by two games and loses the tiebreaker if they end up with the same record.
“That loss hurt us because it means we’ll need CAC to slip up in order for us to get to state,” Treadway said. “We’re not mathematically out of it, and we’re going to keep playing hard.”