This past weekend, the Marian volleyball team traveled to Bethlehem for the First Kill Tournament.

Last night, the Fillies hunted a little closer to home, as Weatherly became Marian's first kill of the 2010 season.After a shaky start in game one, the Fillies (1-0) regrouped and bagged a 25-23, 25-11, 25-12 Schuylkill League Division IV sweep over the host Wreckers (2-1)."After you come away from a weekend (against some of the best programs in the state) where every team is playing top-notch volleyball, it's a little harder to come down to this level and try to play with a team that's knocking the ball all over the place," stated Marian head coach John "Doc" Fallabel. "That's certainly no disrespect to Weatherly, because they're a scrappy team with some good players, but I think the difference in competition may have had something to do with us getting off to a slow start tonight."In the first game alone, Marian had four service errors, four hitting errors and three net violations, as Weatherly traded point-for-point with the Fillies in jumping out to a 20-18 lead. However, two consecutive aces by Katelyn Collevechio put Marian back on top 21-20. With the game tied at 23-23, Marian outside hitter Marykate Sherkness unloaded a kill to give the Fillies a 24-23 lead, and Nikki Collevechio ended the game with an ace from behind the service line."We gave them a little bit of a run there to start off, but we need to do a better job of blocking up front," said Weatherly head coach Nicole Selert. "Obviously, when you play a team like Marian, it's easy to get intimidated, but our girls never backed down and they played to win the game."After ending game one in dramatic fashion, the Fillies got off to a decisive start to begin the second game. Four straight service points by Taylor Mele put Marian in command, and Mele later strung together a five-point service run on her second time through the rotation to stake Marian to a 20-8 lead, en route to a 25-11 victory. Mele was aided by the power hitting of Sherkness, who accounted for 10 of the Fillies' 12 kills in the second game."They (Weatherly) had no right side block, so we just went at them and tried to take advantage of the mismatch," added Fallabel. "Marykate had 45 strong side attacks and Taylor had another 17 during the course of the three games."Sherkness ended the night with 19 kills on 45 attacks, good for an impressive 0.422 attack percentage."Marykate's getting better, but she has a long way to go," lauded Fallabel of his talented sophomore. "She's only been playing volleyball for two and a half years, but you can already see the vast potential she has as a hitter."The third game was very similar to the second for Marian, as the Fillies used service runs by Taylor Mele (nine points) and Cathleen Cataldo (six points) to cruise to a 25-12 decision."For as good as we played in that first game, we totally fell apart in the next two games," added Selert. "We know the things we have to get better at and we're going to work on making those adjustments in order to become a better volleyball team."Aside from Sherkness (19 kills, 10 digs), Marian got 5 kills apiece from Mele, Tori Vadyak and Kathleen Reilly. Mele also added 19 service points to go along with 11 digs. Rachel Krajcirik dished off 29 assists for the Fillies and Cathleen Cataldo and Katelyn Collevechio added 13 and seven digs respectively.For Weatherly, Brittany Hinkle had seven kills and 27 digs, while Sarah Dolinsky added four kills and 21 digs. Alyssa Kephart (four kills, 15 digs), Rachel Heister (11 assists), Samantha Strizak (19 digs) and Alicia Panzarella (17 digs) also aided the Wreckers.In the JV game, Marian posted a 25-18, 25-18 victory.