West sites will host this ….

West sites will host this year’s matches with varsity play starting at 7:15 p.m.

Gilman 3, Loyal 2

Senior Night got off to a tough start Thursday when one of the seniors to be honored, Emilia Reid, wasn’t able to attend due to illness.

The rest of the night, however, could go down as the best match of the season for the Pirates.

Down 0-2 and having trouble finding consistency, the Pirates started pulling things together midway through the match and won the last three games by razor-thin margins to earn a thrilling Eastern Cloverbelt win over the Loyal Greyhounds.

Loyal came into the match at 3-1 in league play. The young, quick and scrappy club played like it, giving the Pirates all they could handle in front of a spirited fan bases from both sides.

“That was amazing,” said Hendricks, one of the two seniors who did play for Gilman.

“We couldn’t ask for anything better,” said Mann, another senior. “That was awesome. That was the best thing we could’ve wished for.”

“That was so fantastic,” head coach Janice Komanec said. “We talk about the fact that time and time again in playoffs and in big matches you see teams be down by two and come back. The great teams can do it because they learn, they move their defenses, they move their attack points and we did. We were passing well, but in set one and two we let them get those leads and then we wanted to fight at the end. We went into set three saying we needed to fight at the beginning and we need to fight each point.”

Loyal isn’t a team blessed with great size at the net, but it has quickness to dig up balls and keep rallies alive and good passers who can set up hitting opportunities for the front row. The Greyhounds got the better of the Pirates in the first two sets, building a five-point lead and winning the opener 25-23 and then, after Chaplinski fired off three aces to give Gilman a quick 3-0 lead, controlling the second game, leading by as much as seven while winning 25-20.

Komanec felt the Pirates were passing well and not playing poorly. The switch flipped just by being smarter about how they were attacking and not falling behind early in the last three games.

“I feel like we weren’t hitting the tip spot in the middle,” Hendricks said. “We were just trying to swing away. We had to get more strategy to it.”

“I think the more we played the more adrenaline we had and we played better,” Mann said.

“We got after the ball better,” Hendricks said. “We had some crazy saves in the second part (of the match).”

Gilman jumped ahead 9-2 in game three and a couple of Jaylyn Orth kills made it 13-7. Loyal crept back into it, tying the set at 19-19 and threatening to complete a sweep. But Hendricks got a kill by going short, Drier had three kills down the stretch and Mann perfectly dumped a couple of short pushes to help Gilman hang on 25-23.

Mann got the Greyhounds on a handful of tips and short pushes in the last three sets.

“Janice was a big help with that, telling me to do that,” Mann said. “But usually when a blocker comes, you just go where the blocker was. Tip where they came from.”

Loyal led game four 15-12 when Hendricks, Chaplinski, Orth and Drier all had successful attacks and Chaplinski got an ace to put Gilman up 19-17. The Greyhounds answered and went up 2119, but a Mann block, a Hendricks kill, a winner from Copenhaver into a Loyal block and Mann’s clinching push won it 25-23 and sent the match to game five.

Loyal took leads of 5-3 and 7-5, but a four-point run that included an Orth block put Gilman in front 9-7. Loyal went on a 4-0 run but Hendricks got a big sideline kill to end it. Things see-sawed back and forth from there. Chaplinski got a huge dig that kept a point alive. It ended with a net violation that gave Gilman at 15-14 lead. Mann placed another light push that made it 16-15 and a Loyal miscue ended it at 17-15.

“The fact that the girls can convert and put the ball in the spots they’re being told to in those big moments, that’s what we need,” Komanec said. “They need that confidence.”

Hendricks was Gilman’s kill leader with 17, Drier had 15, Mann had 12 and Olynick, Chaplinski and Orth chipped in with five each. Orth had two solo block kills. Chaplinski had 41 assists and James added seven. Chaplinski had four aces and James had one.

James led Gilman with 26 digs. Mann had 20, Chaplinski had 18, Drier had 13 and Kenlyn Kroeplin had 11.

“To be down two sets and come back and win is huge for not just this team but this program,” Komanec said. “It’s something we’ve always struggled with, finishing the job. Having that much pressure on them each set and to push it out and win it is great for these girls. It’s fun, but it’s great for them to feel that and realize they can do it. The next time they’re going to say we can do this. Loyal is a solid team. Everything we needed to do we had to earn tonight.”

“We are definitely improving,” Hendricks said. “We’re learning how to be stronger every single day at practice and it’s helping with the overall result.”

Bryn HendricksMATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS