Hale's Laura Sidebottom makes a lunging save of a Posen hit during Thursday's match that had the mid-season North Star League lead on the line. Posen the match in a three-game sweep and now leads Hale, Hillman and Atlanta by one game.
Brent Baker
Posen's Nicole Purol gets a hand on a hit by Hale's Liz Lerczak during Thursday's match. Lerczak got the point, but Posen won the match in three straight.

HALE - Oct. 9, 2008 - With first place in the North Star League on the line, Posen brought its "A Game" to Hale on Thursday evening.

The Hale Eagles didn't, and the Vikings took a 25-19, 25-20,27-25 sweep that snapped a tie atop the league between the two teams. Posen holds a one-game lead over Hale, Atlanta and Hillman with six matches still to go in league play.

"It's just the first game of the second half of the (league) season," said Posen coach John Dietlin. "But it's nice to get a victory against a quality team in their arena.

"We knew we had to really bring it tonight; if we didn't, we'd have gone home with a loss."

Posen kept the Eagles on the defensive all night with their multiple front-line threats, and Hale was unable to get its offense running consistently. Hale had a season-low in kills, many times because they were busy scrambling after a Posen hit forced the Eagles out of position to make a defensive play.

"Posen was a tough team and seemed to be on their game all night," said Hale coach Heather Chrivia. "They had some great serving, hitting and especially some great digs.

"We just couldn't hit the ball... We would have some great plays and then make an error. We just weren't as consistent as we needed to be."

The Eagles led the opening game 5-1 but saw Posen strike back with kills from Victoria Wozniak, Tina Mulka, Nicole Purol and Janice Ciarkowski to take a 7-5 lead. The Vikings never let it that lead get away, and Hale helped the Viking cause with a number of errors of their own.

Tarra Caverly had three kills in a five-point stretch in the second game to bring Hale back to liffe after it trailed 12-7, but the Eagles got no closer than two points the rest of the way.

Posen seemingly had control of the third game after Mulka served up eight straight points, including six aces, but the Hale seniors, Caverly and Liz Lerczak, led Hale on a big run that had the Eagles up 23-19 and 24-21 and on the edge of winning the third game.

Hale lost service, and Wozniak's ace tied it at 24-24. Posen's Emily Smolinski and Hale's Caverly traded points before Posen wrapped it up on kills by Ciarkowski and Purol.

"We tried to hit our spots," Dietlin said. "We really practice that and drill that. But the thing about this team is its intangibles -- the camaraderie and their instinct for the game, from our first player to our 10th."

Posen improved to 7-1 in league play, while Hale fell to 6-2.

"Our girls gave it their all," Chrivia said. "Unfortunately we came up short."

Hale Stats: Tarra Caverly 100% serving, 3 aces, 17 digs, 9 kills; Liz Lerczak 11 digs, 9 kills; Laura Sidebottom 2 aces, 6 digs, 14 assists; Kelsey Reilly  100% serving, 2 aces, 11 digs; Stacey Eno 6 digs; Halley Wolkens 2 aces, 7 digs; Shelby Rhein 5 digs.