It was a long time coming but the Hillcrest Raven volleyball team finished the climb on Tuesday, locking up a four set Southeast Iowa Superconference win over visiting Louisa-Muscatine in Kalona. The Ravens took the victory by scores of 25-18, 25-21, 23-25 and 25-19. This victory stopped several skids for Hillcrest. It’s their first best-of-five match victory of any kind since October 16th, 2018, when the Ravens swept Tri-County, snapping a span of 20 straight losses. It’s the Ravens first victory against a Southeast Iowa Superconference opponent in a regulation best-of-five match since beating Highland October 4th of 2018. That streak was stopped at 19 contests. After the match, Hillcrest head coach Brandon Statler talked about his team’s win, leaders on the floor and getting over the hump with the big victory. “We play better when they remember that we have to be the ones pushing the tempo. We have to push the ball back and get them out of system. It was a tournament feeling tonight. This group has been so responsive and their growth has been tremendous. The freshmen, Malia Yoder and Kylee Statler came through at the end of sets tonight. The seniors were great. We got contributions up and down the lineup tonight. It was a team effort tonight, top to bottom, all eight girls in the rotation.”

Esther Hughes led the Raven offense with 11 kills, Norah Yoder had 26 assists, and Evelyn Gerber led the Hillcrest defense with 14 digs. The Ravens had 20 aces as a team, led by seven from Hughes. Hillcrest is now 3-8 on the year and will travel to Mediapolis Thursday.