Liberty has proven that they are in the upper echelon of volleyball teams in the East Penn Conference this season and the Hurricanes are confident they can stay in that position through the end of the regular season.

Following their sweep over Dieruff last week, Liberty is now 7-1 on the season. They took care of business at their recent Hurricane Invitational with wins over Northampton, Southern Lehigh, Central Bucks East, Bloomfield (NJ) and Salesianum (DE), bouncing back from their April 12 defeat to Parkland--losing 25-22, 25-18, 25-20--giving the defending state champion Trojans their toughest league battle of the season so far.

“I thought our team played a very competitive match against Parkland and we’ve felt pretty confident moving forward,” said head coach Neiad Ammary. “Parkland, after all, is the state’s top ranked team. We wanted to get through Dieruff last week and build more momentum heading into the Emmaus match.”

Emmaus was the next battle on the Hurricanes schedule, taking on the Hornets Tuesday night, after Press deadlines. Emmaus (8-1) are in the conversation with Liberty and Parkland as the upper echelon programs this year and Ammary is fully aware what a win would mean to their confidence and credibility.

“Emmaus is a very good team this year, despite losing some key players from last year’s group that beat us three times,” he said. “It definitely will be a challenge, but it’s a different test than our match with Parkland was. While we expect Emmaus to be very good, we don’t expect them to have quite as many weapons and as much experience as Parkland has.

“Not having played Emmaus yet, we feel like we’re right up there at the top of the EPC. I think everyone on our team believes that we’re good enough to beat every other team out there, but we also know we’re capable of losing on any given day. We try to approach every practice and every match with a healthy combination of humility and determination.”

Freedom (4-7) is off to a slow start this year after splitting matches with Whitehall and North Pocono last weekend.

The Pates fell to the Zephs in three games--18-25, 19-25, 14-25--but swept North Pocono in the process--25-22, 18-25, 25-19. The Pates topped Northampton (1-7) last Tuesday and then were swept by Parkland and Nazareth recently.

Bethlehem Catholic (1-8) has also struggled to get a foothold this year, as the Hawks dropped contests to Whitehall and Nazareth last week and Dieruff on Monday.

It doesn’t get any easier with Parkland and Emmaus this week.