GREENE — North Butler’s Bearcats we’re a point away from defeat when Olivia Dralle pushed the ball back over the net. It spun off the finger tips of a Nashua-Plainfield player going for a block and floated past the back line.

The Bearcats got the serve back and got to work erasing the Huskies’ 24-21 lead. But, as North Butler looked to take a 25-24 lead N-P’s Bailey Fisher launched toward Paige Ripley’s set, and tapped the ball.

The soft arch evaded the blockers. A Bearcat dig went awry. Fisher’s ensuing serve closed out the set, giving the Huskies their second match victory of the night against one loss at the quadrangular hosted Tuesday night by North Butler.

Lake Mills defeated the Huskies 2-0 (25-19, 25-8). Then, N-P bounced back with a 2-1 (25-9, 19-25, 15-11) win over Hampton-Dumont-CAL and a 2-0 (25-15, 26-24) win over North Butler.

N-P improved its season record to 9-17, continuing its late season surge. The Huskies have now won seven of their last 10 matches.

Lake Mills won all three of its matches, improving to 27-4.

“I think we have just kind of found a rhythm,” said N-P head coach Mindy Foelske. “I messed with the lineup a lot at the beginning of the year and now I’ve put some girls in and they’ve gained some confidence in the areas, confidence in each other.

“I really think our service has improved a ton, and our passing, we struggled at times, but most of the time we were getting the passes where we needed them, allowing our center and attackers to go to work.”

This story will be updated as statistics become available.

UP NEXT

N-P will travel to Riceville (20-14) on Monday, Oct. 17, for the first round of the Class 1A Region 5 playoffs. Game time is 7 p.m.