ALBANY — There was a third set lull for the Vikings, but after a talk with head coach Elizabeth McGowan, Pecatonica’s players righted the ship and toppled Albany in four sets 25-12, 25-22, 21-25, 25-12 during their Six Rivers East match at Albany Oct. 3.

Pecatonica came out like gangbusters. Before the Comets knew what hit them, they were down a set. Val Carr went on a 12-serve run with eight aces in the first game, and then in Game 2, Tessa Green had three aces in a 7-serve stretch to get her squad up 14-3.

Albany coach Sydney Bump called a timeout and had her team re-focus. 

The Comets responded and crawled back into the game — slowly at first and then like a ball of fire. A long run at the service line by Jada Flannery helped the Comets harness some momentum and tie the score while flustering the serve-receive side of Pecatonica.

“The last few games she’s been jump-serving and getting a lot of aces for us. She’s also done a great job hitting. She really stepped up tonight,” Bump said of Flannery, who finished with six aces and nine kills in the match.

While Pecatonica won the set, it was Albany that carried the momentum moving forward into Game 3.

“I think that probably one of our better accomplishments this season was not giving up at 14-3 and fighting back,” Bump said.

The fourth set went back to the Vikings, who settled down and scored valuable side-outs to slow any potential run Albany had up its sleeve. 

“We used the word ‘reset’ a lot. We like to think about going point-by-point and refocusing. Volleyball is a game of mistakes, and it’s OK to make them, but that’s how we come back from them and push forward,” McGowan said.

It helped that sophomore Tessa Green was hitting balls seemingly hard enough to dent the floor.

“She is just a sophomore this year, but she is a leader on the court. She’s our setter when she’s coming out of the back row and when she’s in the front row she gets up — and when she gets up, she gets up swings it,” McGowan said.

Carr finished with nine aces and six kills for Pecatonica. Green had 10 assists and nine kills, while Sydney Eaton had 11 assists and 14 digs. Lexi McSherry got in on the act at the net, blocking four shots, and libero Nivaeh Gross collected 23 digs.

Albany is a team chalk-full of underclassmen. There are just two seniors on the roster. Bump said the Comets are constantly looking for a leader and an identity on the court.

“We’ve really struggled this whole season to find a way to play the whole night. We either play well in the beginning, in the middle or at the end. We haven’t really put it all together,” Bump said. “I think we’re struggling to find a leader right now. I think with us being mostly juniors, there’s not too many people pushing them. That’s something we’ve been talking about — they need to be aware that someone is always going to be pushing them for their spot.”

Pecatonica is also a team full of youth, but McGowan, in her first year as coach, has found the response of her players to be helpful for the short and long term.

“It was a fresh start for them showing me where they were going to play and how they were going to play; who is going to be a good pair going up blocking together; who is going to be in the back row together. We’ve been figuring that out and finding those pairings,” McGowan said. “They are starting to talk a lot more and having that confidence with each other.

“I feel like I came in with a really coachable group of girls. They are willing to ask questions, and when you give them that feedback they are willing to listen — whether it’s in a timeout or not, they’ll put that into the next game. It makes me really happy to know what we’ve got for the rest of this season and what we’ve got going forward for the next couple of years.”