<p>For a long time, Whiteland’s volleyball players weren’t used to the idea of winning.</p>
<p>Little by little, the Warriors are starting to figure it out.</p>
<p>Hannah Williams (14 kills) led the drive back from an early deficit and got plenty of help down the stretch as Whiteland pulled out a marathon victory over visiting rival Greenwood on Tuesday night, 18-25, 26-24, 25-22, 21-25, 15-13.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
<p>“We stuck together,” said Whiteland senior Sarah Staples, who finished with 10 kills. “We didn’t give up. Even though they came back and won a game and they tried to intimidate us, we still fought together as a team, we still wanted to win as a team, we still wanted to defend our home court. We just all wanted it as a team, and that’s how it happened.”</p>
<p>After Joy Maze and Megan Johns powered the Woodmen (4-3, 0-1 Mid-State) to a first-set win and helped build a 22-20 lead in the second, Williams delivered consecutive kills to tie it and then added another to give the Warriors a 24-23 lead. A Staples kill tied the match up at 1-1.</p>
<p>Greenwood then got a 20-17 edge in the third set before Whiteland (2-3, 1-0) closed with an 8-2 flurry. Sarah Scott had a kill and a key block during the decisive run, which also featured kills from Williams and Staples.</p>
<p>But the Woodmen weren’t done. Johns took control of another back-and-forth set, hammering down consecutive kills to put Greenwood up for good at 21-20. An Alyssa Stilley kill helped punctuate the 6-1 burst that forced a final set — which, just like every set but the first, was a seesaw affair.</p>
<p>The last of the six lead changes in the fifth came on an ace by Warrior freshman Lindsey Jones that made it 10-9. Greenwood came back to tie it two more times, the last at 13-13, but Whiteland slammed the door shut with a Toni Joyner tip (her 12th kill of the night) and an ace by Tabby Holzhausen.</p>
<p>Whiteland coach Carolyn Ray was thrilled with the effort her team put forth.</p>
<p>“The girls are reading the floor so much better than we used to,” she said. “We see the open holes and we’re placing them. Our serve receive is the best we’ve seen so far in two seasons.”</p>
<p>As those components have come together, the players are starting to believe in themselves, something they’d struggled with in the past.</p>
<p>“We haven’t had confidence because we haven’t had good wins,” Staples said. “We’ve had wins, but they haven’t been solid wins that we’ve fought for. I think that now that we’ve had something that we’ve fought for as a family, that it’s definitely brought us all together and made us realize our potential that we have for the rest of the season.”</p>
