Things started off well for Freedom's volleyball team Monday night at Nazareth, but the wheels fell off after a 25-16 win in the first game. The Pates proceeded to get thoroughly outplayed in the final three games, losing all three (11-25, 13-25 and 21-25) to fall 3-1 to the Blue Eagles.

It's a disappointing defeat for Pates head coach John Yanek, who used most of his players on the night because of the inconsistency by the starters after taking game one.

"It's very frustrating," said Yanek. "We had some of the starters, who felt very complacent that Nazareth was just going to sit back and wasn't going to play. We didn't execute anything in the last three. I used most of the bench because they need to understand that nobody's position is set in stone."

Freedom literally fell apart in the second and third games, trailing 15-6 in the second and falling behind 7-0 in the third games as they failed to recover in those frames.

The Freedom offense couldn't put passes together and failed to serve consistently over the net, as they totaled 34 unforced errors throughout the contest.

"That's basically a game and a half of free points," Yanek said. "We just sat back on our heels and none of our guys would change what they were doing. I mean it was easy serves that we couldn't even hit the net. Today was all mental. It had nothing to do physically, but it was just all mental."

The loss puts Freedom at 3-3 overall 3-2 in East Penn Conference action, however, it was a damaging defeat knowing the circumstances the Pates face ahead in a very difficult EPC this season.

"This loss hurts us," said Yanek. "We needed to get this one. We're going to have to fight very hard the rest of the way to get to .500. The league is so balanced and strong. It's back to the drawing board."

Liberty (4-2, 4-1) leads the Steel Division and already appears to be running away with it, despite losing to Parkland (14-25, 16-25, 20-25) in three games last week.

The Hurricanes have taken nine out of ten games against the rest of their divisional foes.

Bethlehem Catholic (0-5, 0-4) is still looking to get on the winning side of things, as they take on Nazareth (5-3) and Northampton (2-3) this week.