Now is the time that George Cowitch is preaching to his volleyball team. Through 11 matches, Whitehall has enjoyed eight victories, but the three losses - to Parkland, Liberty and Emmaus - are what stand out to him at this point.

The Zephyrs enjoyed wins over Hazleton, Freedom and North Pocono over the weekend, but a three game sweep to Emmaus - 25-19, 25-19, 25-17 - last Thursday shows the Zephyrs still have a lot of work to do in order to crack the top three teams in the district.

“The wins over the weekend were important for our confidence,” said Cowitch. “The Emmaus match, we came out flat and never got right. We also were down our middle and forced to play Devin Martinez, someone with little experience. With that being said, he did alright against a good team.

“Emmaus did pinpoint some concerns that we have and it showed our inexperience in spots. Again, tough to gauge because we were playing from behind most of the night. We spotted them 7-8 points to start sets and then had to fight back and made it close, but couldn’t finish.”

Continuing their momentum shouldn’t be a problem this week, as they topped Dieruff in five games--21-25, 25-15, 25-18, 22-25, 15-5 on Tuesday night and follow that with Bethlehem Catholic on Thursday.

But wins over mid to lower level tier teams in the East Penn Conference isn’t what Cowitch is looking for.

“I think we are right there with Emmaus and Liberty,” he said. “It’s just going to take some confidence from our supporting cast of players. Again, we are very young in some spots, and still able to compete against the good teams. We just have to finish off sets.

“We as a program aren’t content with where we are at. The push starts now, getting out of third gear and shift to fourth and hopefully to overdrive by the time of the playoffs. I told the guys the next couple weeks are taking care of what we control and let the rest fall in place.”