After sailing to an opening set victory Tuesday at Streator’s Pops Dale Gymnasium, the Wilmington girls volleyball team hit choppy waters in the second set – some self-inflicted, some caused by high-energy play from the host Bulldog Spikers.

The Wildcats needed to recapture their first-set form to avoid a winner-takes-the-match third set. That’s exactly what they did, winning nine of the final 11 rallies in a 25-15, 26-24 triumph that keeps Wilmington in the hunt for the Illinois Central Eight Conference title and deals a ding to Streator’s hopes of a third-place finish.

“I feel like we got down really quick [in the second set]. Sometimes that happens,” Wildcats senior setter/right-side hitter Molly Southall said. “But one thing about us is, I feel we always finish strong. Even if we are down, we always seem to find a way to pull through.

“It’s a team effort. We all do it, and I think it just shows how powerful we are as a team.”

Wilmington — playing without dominant hitter Rachel Smith and led on the night by Southall’s four kills, three blocks and eight digs; libero Sami Liaromatis’ match-high 21 digs; four kills from Aly Allgood; and seven assists courtesy of Addison Billingsley — with the win improves to 22-3 overall, 11-1 in the ICE.

Streator — paced by all-stater Aubrey Jacobs’ six kills, one block, five digs and five assists; 11 digs from libero Maiya Lansford; eight digs and two aces off the hands of Avery Gribbin; Sophia Snow’s four kills and a block; and Kinslee Sweeden’s nine assists and five digs – slips to 15-11-1 overall, 5-7 on the ICE loop.

“It’s kind of been our nemesis the last few weeks. We just have to learn how to finish sets and matches,” Streator coach Julie Gabehart said. “We have teams all but beat, and then we start playing careful and not doing what got us to that point. We start playing not to lose instead of to win.

“Honestly, we need to find our energy. We need to get more consistent with our hitting, and our serving has been inconsistent. We just have to clean those things up.”

Wilmington took control of the opening set early with a five-point run on the service of Addison Billingsley (Southall with two of her three stuff blocks during the stretch) that turned an 8-7 set to 13-7. A Bulldog Spikers’ serve return out of bounds ended the set.

The second was quite different, however, with Streator scoring first and ultimately building an 18-11 advantage behind back-to-back Gribbin aces, a Malea Zavada five-point service run (Jacobs and Snow with kills during the stretch), a booming Snow kill and a Sweeden ace.

The Spikers later led 22-17 after another Snow kill, but from there the Wildcats retook control. An Allgood swipe kill over the heads of the creeping Streator back row started the rally, with Allgood, Makenzie Rodriguez and Taryn Talley all putting down late kills leading to Wilmington winning 26-24 on a Streator center-line violation.

“I honestly don’t know what Streator did to get ahead [in the second set],” Wilmington coach Kelly Van Duyne said, “but I know we weren’t passing the best in the second set. But as long as we fought, I thought the team managed to pull together.

“I thought the biggest thing was we weren’t playing as a team the first half of the second game. I called the timeout, and I was like, ‘Anything before this timeout doesn’t matter anymore. Start focusing on tying the game, and then we’ll take the lead from there.’

“So that’s what we did.”