After opening the season with a split of matches against familiar Skyline/West Division opponents Allen and Emmaus, the Whitehall girls volleyball team hosted Liberty last Thursday on Coach Tracy Court.

When it was all said and done the Zephyrs were able to take a set from the Hurricanes, but dropped the match 14-25, 25-23, 12-25, and 15-25.

The first and third sets followed a similar pattern, Whitehall got down early and was not able to recover. The second set, the Zephyrs were down 16-19 when they went on a six-point run during Emily Kloiber’s serve. A big kill from Bailey Seibert earned a key side-out preventing Liberty from coming back.

The fourth set started with promise as Whitehall jumped out to a 4-0 lead. The Hurricanes quickly equalized and went on to claim the set and the match.

The primary issue for the Zephyrs was containing the Liberty’s big outside hitter Sydney Houchens. The junior racked up 14 kills and had 3 blocks for good measure.

Head coach Victoria Bobyak summed up the performance.

“I feel like in the first set we were slow,” she said. “We looked tired. It took us a while to pick things up. Second set, clearly we have the potential to compete with Liberty. Energy was up. We were doing what we practiced and transferring those things into the game. Sometimes we let small mistakes get to us and we don’t pick it up and turn it around.”

Seibert led Whitehall with 10 kills. Nadia Tarsi had 6 and Haley Bartosh had 5.

Kloiber had 3 aces and 2 blocks which led the Zephyrs in both categories.

Setter Alexa Crum had 22 assists.

On Monday, the Zephyrs once again were able to take a set from a quality opponent but could not secure the match. The set scores were 21-25, 17-25, 25-13, 16-25. The loss dropped their record on the season to 1-3

On Saturday morning at 11 the team will host East Stroudsburg North. On Monday at 6:30, they host Parkland. The Trojans are currently ranked second in the state of PA. On Wednesday, they travel to Nazareth to take on the Blue Eagles at 5:30.