The Salisbury girls volleyball team had to work through a pair of losses last week before it reached a milestone for the program with its first varsity win, which came against Catasauqua.

The Falcons won the first two sets in the history of the program earlier in September, but were 0-8 in matches in their inaugural season before picking up the win over the Rough Riders.

Catasauqua took one set in the match, but the Falcons, which have played as a junior varsity team before moving into the varsity ranks this season, pulled together for a 3-1 win.

“The girls have been learning over the last few years,” said head coach Kendall Turk. “They’re starting to see what it’s like being on a varsity team - faster-paced balls are coming, faster serves and a lot more challenging players that are on the teams we’re facing. I’ve coached for years and this is the first year that I have coached a bunch of girls that are actually in love with the game and have a lot of heart to it. That’s something you can’t teach, so it’s really nice to see come naturally to them.

“It was a first for us to take two sets against Palmerton and we definitely had to build on it,” said Turk. “You don’t get a lot of practice time during the season, but we work hard and have been building to that first win for the program.”

Individual statistics were not made available for the team, but Rodas pointed out some of the players who have opened eyes this season with the team.

“We’ve got a really good middle in Annalise Shelly” Turk said. “She has been killing it with blocks. We want her to be a little more aggressive at the net. We’ve been great at libero with Lyla Stroup and we have a great setter in Allyson Fatzinger. We have a lot of great, developing players and that gives us a bright future.”

Salisbury has a match against Notre Dame of Green Pond, one of the tougher teams in the Colonial League, on Tuesday. That begins a stretch of three games in three days, and is followed by a home match against Saucon Valley on Wednesday and a road trip to Pen Argyl on Thursday.