Whitehall’s boys volleyball team won its regular-season match against Northampton last week, but the Zephyrs were determined to leave no doubt in a rematch with the Konkrete Kids in an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference quarterfinal on May 7 at Whitehall.

“We felt like we know what they do because we played them last week,” said Whitehall middle hitter Michael Rabih (7 kills, 2 blocks). “They have some good guys they focus on, and as long as we were focused on doing our job on our side of the net, it would come together.”

The Zephyrs won in straight sets, 25-19, 26-24, 25-12.

“We expected it to be close (last week),” said Whitehall coach George Cowitch. “Today, we didn’t expect that. We had some time to work on what we wanted to do, so it was nice, even in that second set, to come back and be OK, and that was good. I appreciate that from our guys.”

The K-Kids stayed on the Zephyrs’ heels for the first two sets, and took their first lead of the match in the second set, but Whitehall opposite hitter Omar Tembo (13 kills, 4 digs) scored two straight points to shift the momentum.

The Zephyrs led 20-15, and Northampton coach Sue Arndt called a timeout as the K-Kids were losing points on errors.

Northampton pulled closer, eventually tying the set, 21-21, and Cowitch called a timeout.

“Honestly, most of it was our errors,” said Rabih, “but we cleaned it up at the end and pulled it off.”

As the teams traded points, Rabih delivered a huge point at the net, and Jack Kocher (16 kills, 10 digs, 2 aces) scored the set-winner.

“You see the pass and put it back down,” Rabih said. “In the beginning of the season, the middles, in general, had problems, but our coaches saw that, we fixed it, and that’s pretty much all it is, being active at the net.”

The Zephyrs ran away with the third set where Tembo’s kill to the back row gave Whitehall a 10-point lead.

Erick Zuniga made a difficult save and backward return that fell in the perfect spot on Northampton’s side of the net for another Zephyr point.

Peter Tabarani’s tip at the net ended the match.

“We realized we had to just bury them,” said Rabih. “Leave no doubt.”

Whitehall will take on Emmaus in an EPC semifinal at 5 p.m. on May 9 at William Allen High School but will be without Ethan Ringenberger, who is currently injured.

“We want him back for districts. Districts helps you go to the state playoffs, and that’s our goal. That’s what we want to do if we can,” Cowitch said. “We coached them hard yesterday, and I said I’m just gonna let you play. There’s nothing really I can do now at this point in the season. We can get a couple guys a little better, but we’re in a good spot, and we get Ringenberger back at some point. I like our chances. I really do. This is a really resilient team, and we preach it, and I think they got the message.”