SPRING VALLEY — With the second spot in the Dunn-St. Croix Conference on the line, Elmwood/Plum City volleyball entered an electric Spring Valley atmosphere and bounced back after a shaky first set to win 3-1 Thursday.

“It means a lot. When we come to Spring Valley, our kids are ready to play,” EPC Head Coach Amanda Webb said. “It’s a great rival, they worked really hard.”

Webb said it is a match both teams always come ready to play for, and it was the Cardinals that jumped out to a 25-18 first set win. Spring Valley was looking strong, but EPC had other plans.

“We didn’t pass very well,” Webb said. “We were not passing to be aggressive at the net offensively, so when we honed in on our passing the rest of the match, we took care of business at the net.”

In set two, the Wolves built a 19-12 lead; however, Spring Valley brought it all the way to a 24-22 EPC lead. The momentum was on the side of Spring Valley, yet the composure never left the side of EPC, taking a 25-22 win.

“We just have to calm down, think about our body movements, control what we can control, take care of business and the girls did that,” Webb said.

After holding strong in set two, it was smooth sailing going forward. The Wolves won 25-13 in set three and 25-17 in set four to coast to victory.

“We served in, we got them out of system a lot and then we were passing really well which helped us get a lot of kills,” Webb said.

EPC moved to 19-7 on the year and 4-1 in conference play, staving off Spring Valley to hold the second conference spot behind 6-0 Durand-Arkansaw. Spring Valley went to 15-8 on the year with a 4-3 conference record, but are still standing strong in the conference’s third spot.

“We’re looking in the top two, three seed going into our Regional, so get a home game and play tough,” Webb said.

For EPC, the road to success is not to be driven by just one player, taking the whole team marching in the right direction to get where they want to get. That is what Webb saw in their win over Spring Valley, with everyone doing their part.

“All-around, mixing it up with our hitters at the front row, they hustled,” Webb said. “Everybody contributed to our team win.”

EPC has won their last five matches and seven of their last eight matches, and with just a pair of regular season conference matchups to play, they are playing their best at the perfect time.

Regionals begin Oct. 22 and the State Tournament runs from Nov. 7-9.