Getting off to a quick start can be a key to success. This proved to be true in the EPC League volleyball quarterfinal on Saturday when Pleasant Valley traveled to Liberty.

The Bears got off to an early run in the opening set to take the lead. However, the Hurricanes stormed back in the second and third sets, grabbing large leads that PV was unable to recover from, and Liberty finished the job to grab a 3-1 victory.

Entering the month of October, league playoffs appeared to be a question mark for Pleasant Valley. From that point, the team proceeded to win four of its final five games to qualify as the sixth seed in the conference.

“The first part of the season, we struggled at times, and we just had to have that belief that we’re gonna figure things out, we’re going to get it together,” Bears’ head coach Drew Dymond said. “We have a lot of talent on our team. We just have to kind of admit that to ourselves that we have some confidence and we are a talented team. Once that starts to happen, then good things happen on the court.”

Considering that PV fell to Liberty 3-0 earlier in the season, the strategy was simple: be aggressive and don’t back down. Initial results were positive.

The Bears used this aggressiveness to go on a 5-0 run and gain an early 14-8 advantage in the first set. Liberty fought back to tie the score at 17, but another 5-0 PV run propelled the visitors forward to take the opening set 25-21.

“Pleasant Valley had a great first set, and they came out and I thought they served us tough,” said Hurricanes’ head coach Fernando Torres. “We had a lot of serve reception errors, hitting errors or unforced errors. They came out of the gate and they were on fire, and our girls needed to be able to weather that and push through.”

Not only did Liberty weather the early storm, but it countered with a greater storm that overwhelmed the Bears in the second and third sets.

The Canes started working the ball over to Sofia Condoulis on the outside to finish plays off. Once the junior got on a hot streak, Pleasant Valley had no way of stopping her.

In set two, Liberty dominated with two separate 5-0 runs and a 6-0 stretch to win 25-12. Then in the following set, the Canes used a 9-1 run to pull away early to remain a step ahead of the Bears the rest of the way. Despite PV pushing back, Liberty went on a 7-2 stretch to win the set 25-17 and take the match lead.

“We started the match up really aggressive,” Dymond said. “That was our game plan there. I thought ‘let’s go out and be aggressive and see what happens. We’re not going to beat a good team like this playing tentative.’ And I thought we came out that way. As the match went on, Liberty started to make some adjustments. They started to gain some confidence and we did struggle to kind of catch up at times.”

When set four got underway, it was clear that the Bears weren’t going to go down quietly. PV stayed with the Hurricanes to a 15-15 tie before Liberty finally managed to pull away to win the match with a 25-20 set four victory.

STANDOUT STARS… Condoulis did most of the offensive damage for Liberty, amassing 28 kills. Mia Mitch was the primary playmaker totaling an astounding 41 assists, and team captain Eva Madeira kept numerous plays alive with 28 digs, including the 1000th of her career.

For Pleasant Valley, Kira Hnat stood out with 27 assists, setting up Sasha Slozina for 11 kills and Bella Slizewski with nine.

WHAT’S NEXT?... The Bears will have over two weeks off before participating in the District XI 5A semifinals which will be hosted at Lehighton on Monday 11/2.

Liberty advances to the EPC League semifinals, being held at Northampton on Tuesday, where they will go up against Parkland.