Looking for momentum late in the season and to notch a few more wins to improve their standings in the Big Seven league the Holton Wildcats and Hiawatha Red Hawks squared off against each other in Hiawatha in a pair of volleyball matches.

The Wildcats went home with a pair of wins sweeping Hiawatha but it didn't come easy for the Wildcats, especially in the second match of the night.

In matchup number one on the evening Holton rattled off four straight points to establish an early 7-3, advantage that ballooned out to a 17-8 lead midway through the set and went on to take the set 25-11. In set two it was seven straight to start the set by Holton to establish an early cushion and lead, but that lead did hold up. After a substitution infraction by Holton the scored changed from 17-7 to 14-8, Holton on top but Hiawatha got the serve off the infraction by the Wildcats. That swung momentum in favor of Hiawatha and they came storming back to close the gap behind aggressive kills by Elizabeth Chilcoat and their blocking defense upfront, but Holton stopped the momentum and regained control to capture the set and match win taking set 25-21. Cassidy Merriman, Haley Jacobs and Hayley Thompson all made plays at the hitter position for the Wildcats.

Match two was the better of the two matches as it featured a pair of highly contested pair of sets with Holton edging Hiawatha for the straight set win, 25-21 and 33-31. In set one the Red Hawks took the early lead and stretched it out to seven point lead early in the set before Holton put a stretch run to get back into the set and ultimately take their first lead in the set at 19-18. Once Holton took the lead the Wildcats didn't give it up, posting five straight points to lead 22-18 and closing it out after Hiawatha tallied a few more points, 25-21. Set two was the action packed set of the night as Holton took the early lead and lead a majority of the set before seven straight points by Hiawatha got them back into the matchup and tied it up at 20-20. From that point Hiawatha took the lead and had match point three times but Holton fought back themselves to tie it up at 24-24, to force play to continue and that it did as teams traded points back and forth before Holton finally grab the set win 33-31 to take the match.

With the pair of Big Seven wins Holton finishes 12-4 in league action for the year and improved to 17-12 on the season with the last action in the regular season coming up Saturday at the Sabetha Invitational. For the Hiawatha Red Hawks the losses sent them to 8-16 on the season and 4-10 in league play with a matchup against Jeff West looming on Tuesday (October 22nd), but they will play at the Sabetha Invitational, also this weekend before closing out their regular season on Tuesday.