After losing to Greenway and Estrella Foothills in back-to-back games, the St. Mary’s Knights volleyball team bounced back to pull out a win against the Thunderbird Chiefs.

The Knights defeated the Chiefs in four sets by the scores of 25-20, 21-25, 25-19 and 25-17. This win raised St. Mary’s record to 11-5, including 1-1 in their region.

The team pulled out a win, but it wasn’t the game they were expecting to have.

“We figured out how to fight through a bad night,” said head coach September Lopez. “We had an off night, but the girls learned to fight through the adversity.”

The match started off with high-intensity volleyball and points flipping back and forth between the teams.

The Knights got the lead after defensive specialist and libero Imani Cannon went on a serve streak, resulting in a 15-9 lead. Thunderbird played with tenacity and fought back, resulting in a score of 19-16 and prompting a timeout by St. Mary’s.

The timeout proved to be helpful, as it changed the tone of the first set, resulting in a huge momentum shift and allowing the Knights to win the set, 25-20, off of a big kill by middle blocker and outside hitter Leilani Clark.

In the second set, the Knights had an inconsistent defensive showing, allowing Thunderbird hitters to find the open spots on the court. The Chiefs outlasted the Knights in long rallies and St. Mary’s lost the set 21-25.

Like sets one and two, the third set started off close with points being exchanged back and forth. Thunderbird made errors one right after the other, causing their coach to call for a timeout. After the timeout, the Knights started a great push after a huge dig by Cannon and a big swing from opposite hitter and middle blocker Jayden Quinn.

“We had way more energy in the third set,” said outside hitter and middle blocker Karla Ramirez. “We were able to start talking more and shake the second set loss off.”

Thunderbird started off the fourth set with a serve into the net, which set the tone for the Chiefs throughout the rest of the set.

The Knights outlasted the Chiefs in the long rallies, causing Thunderbird to make errors. Thanks to hitting errors and serving errors by the Chiefs, the Knights won the final set by a score of 25-17.

It was the first region win for the Knights this season. St. Mary’s lost its first region match in a closely fought game against Greenway on Thursday.

“We had to stay positive after our loss at Greenway because we know we played well,” Cannon said. “We made some mental errors, but we did play well as a team. The whole time we never got down on ourselves."

After every point, win or lose, the Knights met in the middle and encouraged one another. The game didn’t go as planned, but this win means St. Mary’s is one win closer to its goal: to win the state championship.

“We still have a chance to go to the playoffs,” Cannon said. “It was a battle tonight and we’ll continue to fight hard.”

St. Mary’s next game is on Tuesday at Shadow Mountain High School, where they will take on the Matadors at 6 p.m.