The Whitehall boys volleyball team had a busy weekend, traveling north to tackle a couple of District 2 denizens.

They played a tri-match against Tunkhannok and Delaware Valley, emerging victorious in both matches. Those two victories raised their record to 7-1 this season.

Their first match was against Tunkhannock and head coach George Cowitch said that they handled the Tigers in three sets. In that match, Dylan McGinley had 10 kills and three blocks, while Alex Khouri had eight kills and four blocks.

They also had outstanding floor games a number of players, including Sami Barhoum who had six kills and two blocks, while Rick Melosky had 31 assists and Aziz Atiyeh had six aces and five digs.

Their match against Delaware Valley lasted a bit longer as they were stretched to five sets. They lost the first set 18-25, but rallied to win the next two, but the Warriors won the fourth set, evening the match. The Zephs prevailed in the deciding set, winning 18-16.

“We knew that they would be a good team and wanted to get a competitive out-of- conference match,” said Cowitch.

He said that they started slow in the first set, making too many errors. That script was flipped in the second and third sets as they were really efficient, capitalizing on a low error rate in those sets which was accompanied by a playing style that was free and loose.

The fourth set they made too many errors, and in the fifth set they started slow, trailing 6-13 with the Warriors needing just two points to win the set and match. Cowitch said that came all the way back to tie it at 14, and then took the lead at 15-14 before hitting the ball into the net which prevented them from closing out the match. However, they didn’t get rattled and finally sealed the deal a few points later, taking the match 18-16.

In that win, Khouri had 21 kills and five blocks, while Joe Herman had 17 kills and nine digs. Additionally, Ethan Parvel had 14 kills, 12 digs and four aces, while Atiyeh had 10 digs and Melosky had 58 assists.

“I feel it shows that our guys refuse to let Del Val win, and that’s a good quality to have [when] playing against a quality opponent,” said Cowitch. “We didn’t have that against the loss to Easton and that was concerning; we are better than them, but just didn’t bring what we have to the table. I don’t see that being a problem in the near future. We don’t have time for that, playing some good opponents coming up.”