The EPC volleyball tournament got underway on Tuesday night with Liberty entering the tournament as the top-seed.

The Hurricanes (15-1) met a familiar foe in city rival and eighth seed Freedom (11-7) in the opening round of the tourney, which was past Press deadlines.

The Hurricanes and Patriots squared off last week in their regular season finale, as Liberty came away with a 3-1 win (19-25, 25-9, 25-21, 25-18).

The game that Freedom took from Liberty was the first one that any opponent won over the Hurricanes since they lost in four games to Nazareth on September 18.

Liberty has won 10 straight matches since that defeat, but head coach Missy Lynn understands things won’t be easy playing the Pates again this week.

“It’s always difficult to play the same team so many times in a season,” she said. “We didn’t perform well against Freedom last week, so we’ll be working on being more mentally engaged for [Tuesday]. I was happy to see Freedom play well and I’m sure they’ll be ready to challenge us again.”

The winner of Tuesday’s contest will take on either fourth-seeded Parkland or fifth-seeded Bethlehem Catholic in Thursday’s semifinal round.

The bottom of the bracket features Emmaus and Nazareth in a three-six matchup and Central Catholic and Pleasant Valley in a two-seven bout.

Finals are slated for Saturday with sites and times for the semifinal and final round to be determined.

With the EPC tournament acting as a primer for the District 11 tournament next week, Lynn is just prepping her team for the challenge of being ready for playoff volleyball.

“I’m really looking forward to both tournaments,” she said. “This season is very evenly matched and I feel the team that shows up more mentally prepared and makes fewer unforced errors will win.

“We’re taking this one game at a time. It doesn’t matter who we get matched up against, we have to come in and control the ball on our side of the net to win.”