It has been an uphill battle for Bethlehem’s volleyball teams this year, as Freedom, Liberty and Bethlehem Catholic are all uncharacteristically below .500 through this point of the season.

For Freedom head coach John Yanek, this year’s results aren’t up to his expectations so far, as the team sits at 4-5 heading into the week.

The Pates lost matches to Nazareth and Liberty last week, putting them in a slide as they enter a busy week.

“We are inexperienced and not mentally tough enough,” Yanek said. “We need to improve our blocking and hitting. We’re struggling right now.”

Freedom has a chance to right the ship this week with four matches against Emmaus, Easton, Whitehall and Bethlehem Catholic. The issue is that Emmaus and Whitehall are two of the top teams in the area, which would make this week one of their toughest stretches.

Yanek, however, wants his team’s psyche to improve.

“I believe we should be winning more,” he said. “We had three close matches with Easton, Nazareth, and Liberty which could have gone our way, but we got down and counted ourselves out.”

Liberty (3-4) picked up an important win over the Pates last week and enter this week with a favorable schedule to make some headway toward a playoff push.

They have matches against Bethlehem Catholic, Dieruff, Allen and Northampton, who are a combined 12-18. Saturday’s match with the 8-1 K-Kids will be their biggest challenge.

Becahi (2-6) has dropped three straight with matches against Liberty, Allen and Freedom this week. The Hawks need to get in the win column this week to have a shot at the postseason.