Where Liberty stands in the hierarchy of East Penn Conference volleyball will become clearer over the next week, as the Hurricanes will face two of their tougher tests of the regular season.

That starts with Wednesday’s home showdown against Nazareth (9-1) in a battle of two of the top records in the conference.

Head coach Mike Zile knows this week’s tilt with the Blue Eagles is important, but doesn’t want to treat it as anything more than another match.

“I’ve been letting the guys know since the beginning of the season that they have to prepare for every match the same way and think of each match like a playoff match,” said Zile. “The thought is that I don’t want them to selectively decide when they need to get ready for a big match. Nazareth’s match is a big match just like all the others. We have lost to Nazareth the past couple of seasons and they are off to a strong start, where it will definitely be a test to see where we stand against a top team in the league.”

Liberty got a chance to gauge their midseason form over the weekend at the Koller Classic at Central York, one of the state’s top tournaments during the season. The 20 team event featured seven state ranked teams with the Hurricanes facing (Cumberland Valley #3 AAA, North Allegheny #6 AAA, Northeastern #10 AAA and Manheim Central #3 AA). Liberty lost to Cumberland Valley (25-14, 25-22) and North Allegheny (25-22, 25-15), but defeated Manheim Central 25-22 in the playoffs and lost in the quarterfinals to Northeastern 25-13. Northeastern ended up winning the tournament over Central York (25-22, 25-18).

It was a great learning opportunity for the team, as they look to sharpen their sword in the second half of the season.

“We’ve got work to do on reading and reacting to setters when it comes to closing the block on the pins against faster paced sets,” said Zile. “Serving always needs to get better. If our serves get better then our practices will be better and we will be able to test out our own serve receive more. Northeastern beat us with a combination of aggressive serves, quicker offense we usually don’t see and a strong defense where it was harder to put balls down. If we can improve upon all of those areas then we should fair well against any team we play. It’ll take time and won’t happen over night, but since we are at the halfway point of the season I think the tournament gave us the kind of reps we needed for the home stretch.”

Liberty closes out the week against Northampton (4-5) on Friday.

Freedom (4-6) snapped a four-game losing streak with a three-game sweep over Easton last week. The Pates look to get back to .500 this week with matches against Pocono Mountain East (6-3) and Allen (2-6).

Bethlehem Catholic (2-8) continues to struggle this season, as the Hawks lost to Allen last week in four games.

The Hawks have three matches this week against both Pocono Mountain schools and then Friday’s bout with Nazareth.