Looking for a way to sustain her team's recent run of success, Whitehall girls' volleyball coach Laura Hausman decided she needed to shuffle her squad's lineup.

Despite entering Monday's Eastern Pennsylvania Conference contest against Pleasant Valley on a three-match winning streak, Hausman took a chance by going with a new and unproven formation against the Bears.Hausman's hunch paid dividends, as Whitehall overcame a slow start to come back and defeat Pleasant Valley, 20-25, 25-15, 25-22 and 25-13.The first year coach's reasoning for the switch was simple."We don't try to match up per team, we try to match up by what's best for us," Hausman said of her strategy afterwards. "If we do our jobs, then the other side of the net really shouldn't matter."Not that it won't (matter), but if we handle what we need to do, and we do it well, we'll be in a good spot. And that's how we came into tonight."Whitehall (6-3, 5-3) started slowly as Pleasant Valley outscored the Zephyrs 11-5 to pull away and erase what was a 17-17 tie to take the first game 25-20.Faced with a similar situation in the second game, Whitehall found its rhythm. The Zephyrs scored the final nine points in the second to take control and seize momentum en route to sweeping the final three games.In what was a back-and-forth contest throughout, Hausman pointed to her team's work ethic as playing a prominent role in allowing it to fight back in difficult situations."We've had a lot of (close) games like this so far this season," she said. "And we also practice this way; we practice being down and coming back so they stop score-watching. Regardless of what the score is, we need to play consistently."Sometimes they just need a reminder to go back to basics and do what they need to do and the score will reflect that. And we've also been trying to change their mentality so they don't panic when things are tight or not going our way and just play."Whitehall's consistent play was evident throughout its lineup, but it was especially clear when looking at the stats of two of the Zephyrs top hitters, as Liz Lynch and Rebecca Lutterschmidt finished with 14 and 13 kills, respectively.While Whitehall continued its winning ways, Pleasant Valley (5-4, 5-4) saw its run of recent struggles continue with a third straight loss, a setback that troubled Bears' head coach John Gesiskie."We should have won," the coach said. "We're just not playing up to our capability. That wasn't an indication of the kind of team that we can be; not even in the ballpark."One of the reasons for the team's recent struggles is its inability to convert points at the service line, an area Gesiskie takes great pride in."In my 20-plus years as head coach, this is the first year that we're below 90 percent in serving," he said. "We used to be at 94 or 95 (percent) with hundreds of aces. But now, we're not even 90-something percent with the serves."It's not like you can say, 'All right, they're serving hard so we're getting lots of aces and that's why the percentage is down.' We're not. We're just serving and the percentage is down, so we're not getting points in any way, shape or form."Struggles aside, Gesiskie's players know there's still plenty of time to turn it around and for the team to realize its full potential."We definitely need to work together more as a team, come together and start really connecting," said senior Kalli Walling. "We have all the skills, we just have to work on other aspects of our game."