As the regular season winds down for the Northampton girls volleyball team, they find themselves needing a strong finish to qualify for the postseason.

Last Monday night in Pete Schneider Gymnasium, they found themselves locked in a 5-set battle with another team in similar circumstances, Nazareth.

The Konkrete Kids fought back from a two-set deficit to square the match, but the Blue Eagles won the last 8 points of the match to prevail 25-22, 26-24, 10-25, 21-25, 15-6.

The girls would fall to Freedom and Easton and are set to close out their season Wednesday, after Press deadlines, against unbeaten and top 3A seed, Bethlehem Catholic.

Against Nazareth, the first two sets were nail biters. In the first, the K-Kids rallied from 22-17 down to tie it up at 22. However, Nazareth earned a side-out with a strong kill and won the next two points on serve to claim the set.

The second frame saw a reversal of roles in its closing moments. This time Northampton held a 21-18 lead. The Blue Eagles staged a comeback, winning five straight points to go up 23-21. The Kids bounced back to scored three consecutive points to earn a set point at 24-23. But Nazareth took the final three points to win the set.

In the third and fourth sets, the K-Kids delivered perhaps their most confident play all season as they steamrolled their division rivals. They grabbed an early 7-1 lead and never let go as they won the third set in only eight rotations.

Northampton also led comfortably in the fourth set 24-17 before the Blue Eagles had a 4-point run to make the score look a little more competitive than it really was.

Unfortunately, the Kids could not sustain the momentum in the fifth and decisive set. Nazareth got out to a 5-3 lead in the race to 15 points and although Northampton got to within 6-7, the visitors ran out the match on their next service rotation.

“There was a lot of push and pull with the energy tonight and they just took it in that fifth set. I think maybe we assumed that we were going to win and I think they wanted it slightly more. They served super aggressive in that set,” explained head coach Helene Quaintance.

Claire Luckenbach had a monster match, racking up 13 kills and 4 aces. Setter Cyd Chilson dished out 26 assists and had 14 digs. Grace Wolfel paced the defense with 29 digs. Averie Morgan had 7 kills and led the team with 4 blocks.

Northampton is 6-9 overall and 5-8 in the EPC with three matches left to play. They need to win all three to get their winning percentage to .500 to qualify for districts.

They were at Freedom (13-2) on Wednesday and will close with Easton (6-8) at home on Monday and Bethlehem Catholic (14-0) this coming Wednesday.