By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

PERRYSBURG — The Perrysburg boys volleyball team remained undefeated on the season, rallying from a near 2-1 set deficit Tuesday to knock off visiting Sylvania Northview 25-13, 18-25, 25-23, 25-17, on Tuesday.

The match, which was a battle between two teams that had lost just one set apiece all season, saw an interesting start as Perrysburg jumped out to a 10-0 lead early behind a trio of kills from Will Keller as the Yellow Jackets eventually led 19-3.

Northview made it interesting by pulling within 11 following a pair of kills from Christian Berling, but the Wildcats were undone at the service line where they faulted three of their final four attempts as Perrysburg took the early match lead.

That’s when the Wildcats stunned Perrysburg, reeling off 10 straight points themselves to open the second set. Despite pulling within as few as six, the Yellow Jackets saw Northview finish off a 25-18 victory to even the match and end a 19-set winning streak from Perrysburg.

“Obviously, we were a little bit shook,” Perrysburg senior Jake Ng said. “We weren’t expecting it. We won the first set by so much. The second set, they came back. It was rough, but I think coach did a really good job and we all just gelled together. That’s all that matters.”

Before the comeback, however, Northview kept the momentum rolling and used an 8-2 run early in the third set to take a 16-9 lead.

“We really started making mistakes on our own, kind of shooting ourselves in the foot,” Perrysburg coach Troy Zabawa said. “We were playing out of system and not making them earn points. We gave them points and dug ourselves into a big hole, and it’s really hard to get yourselves out of a hole like that.”

Keller got some juice going for the Yellow Jackets with a kill and a solo block on back-to-back points as Perrysburg reeled off five straight and 12 of the next 16 points.

That’s when Grey Swanson took over for Perrysburg. The junior racked up back-to-back kills for a 21-20 lead, added another to knot it at 22 apiece and then won the set with a kill from the left side.

“We’re really outside strong,” Zabawa said. “I tried to get our middles involved with Will (Keller) but they kind of closed the gap on us on our blocks so I pushed it to the outside and made sure Grey was taking some nice swings.”

Swanson tallied five of his seven kills in the third set alone.

“At first, we were really sloppy, but towards the end we really pulled it together,” Ng said. “Big props to Will and Gray, they really brought the team together with their kills, their mentality and keeping our spirit up overall.”

Northview scored four of the first five points in the fourth set, but Perrysburg got an ace from Ethan Gray, a pair of kills from Ng and another termination from Keller while reeling off 9-2 run and forcing a timeout from Northview.

Berling produced a termination out of the timeout but the Yellow Jackets doubled up the visitors, 14-7, with a mini-run highlighted by a solo block from Paulo Walkosky. Keller added a solo block a short time later as Perrysburg led 17-9.

Ng then tacked on three of his six kills in the set, including the match-winner, to finish off the match.

Offensively, Berling led all players with 28 kills, including eight alone in his team’s victorious second set.

“Kudos to Northview, they have a great player over there,” Zabawa said. “(Berling’s) a fantastic player, and I knew that he was going to get his points. It was just a matter of not letting him dominate the entire match and kind of keeping him in check.”

Ng led Perrysburg with 16 kills while Keller (9) and Swanson (7) combined for 16. Jacob Xiao led the Yellow Jackets with three aces while Zach Gray had two.

While Northview fell to 4-1 on the season, Perrysburg remained undefeated (7-0) with five sweeps.

“We’ve been doing fantastic,” Zabawa said. “The team has been keeping together, staying focused and making sure they’re doing the right things to get ready for the next game.”