Ridgeview’s Hailey Nelson (3) goes up for a ball at the net during the match against Summit on Thursday at Ridgeview High School.

Heading into the second half of the Intermountain Conference volleyball season, Ridgeview was in desperate need of wins to climb its way back up the standings and back into the playoff hunt.

And with two wins this week over teams that had beaten them earlier in league play, the Ravens did just

that.

“We decided to not let

these losses in the past hold

us down,” said Ridgeview senior libero Sarah Fretz. “We decided to let them fuel our fire.”

Ridgeview (7-10 overall, 3-4 IMC) picked up a four-set home win (26-24, 21-25, 25-17, 25-21) over Summit Thursday evening. It was the second time in the week that the Ravens beat an IMC team that had defeated them in the first round of league matches after beating Caldera in four sets on Tuesday.

“We just played as a team and played for each other,” said Ridgeview coach Michelle Green. “We are getting to that point of the season where we are all just starting to mesh, doing our jobs and doing those jobs well.

“I think it is the mindset in practice and in games,” Green added on the change she has seen from her team. “They are fully competing and giving their all and just making smart choices.”

The Ravens now find

themselves back in the

mix of a crowded IMC with three matches left in the season. Bend High sits alone

atop the conference, Summit is alone in second place,

while Mountain View,

Caldera and Ridgeview are all within a game of one another battling for one of the conference’s three automatic playoff spots.

The Storm (10-7, 5-2) swept the Ravens in the first meeting on Sept. 24.

So to come back a couple of weeks later and control much of the highly-contested match against a quality team that was tied for first in the IMC standings showed just how much improvement Ridgeview has made in just a few short weeks.

“I think we are proving that we can be that top team and we can beat the good teams in our league,” said junior outside hitter Addy Cummings.

Improved effort and energy are two of the main differences both Cummings and Fretz have seen from the Ravens over the past two

weeks.

Last weekend, at the Mt. Hood Invite at Sam Barlow High, the Ravens began to feel as though their play on the court was improving and that they could make some noise in the second half of IMC play.

“We just got together and said this is our year to come together and show everyone what we can do,” Fretz said. “We went to Barlow and played our hearts out. We started to play like we played tonight. We got more confident. A lot of our hitters are new to the varsity level. They are finally catching up and getting more confident.”

Ridgeview, with a new found sense of confidence, faces the conference’s top team next at Bend High.

“Now that we have

beaten these teams we know that we can beat anybody,” Cummings said. “We are going to go out and try and prove that.”