After playing four matches over the weekend in the Springfield Lutheran tournament and traveling to Bloomington on Tuesday, the La Salle-Peru volleyball team stumbled out of the gate Wednesday.

The Cavaliers gave up two kills and an ace as Rock Falls scored the first three points.

L-P clawed back into the set, tied it at 10, took the lead midway through and led the rest of the way in a 25-18, 25-18 nonconference victory in La Salle.

“I think we started a little slow, but then we got the hang of it and came together,” L-P senior middle hitter Kelsey Frederick said. “At the beginning we were all pretty eager, because it’s a home game and we love home games.

“We just had to calm down a bit.”

L-P trailed 5-1 and 8-4. L-P coach Mark Haberkorn called a timeout trailing 10-7.

Out of the break, Maggie Boudreau killed a freeball, Frederick slammed down a kill on a slide, and a Rock Falls error tied the set at 10.

“When we go up there and take a strong swing and do something with the ball, we get the momentum back, because everyone’s excited about a good kill,” Frederick said.

L-P senior outside hitter Anna Riva tied it with a kill off the block. Back-to-back errors gave L-P a 13-11 lead. A hard kill by Frederick followed by a thunderous kill of a freeball by Aubrey Duttlinger started a seven-point run that pushed the Cavs’ advantage to 20-12.

“We started off slow in set one. We just seemed to be a little bit flat,” Haberkorn said. “But once we got into the flow of the game, I thought we played very well. In the first set, once we started getting the lead, we just built on it from about 10 points to the end.”

The Cavs rode the momentum into set two.

Emma Jereb served an ace to start the set, and a kill and a block by Duttlinger on back-to-back plays pushed the lead to 5-1.

Rock Falls used two timeouts early, but it couldn’t slow down L-P as the Cavs pushed their lead to 16-4.

“We had such good swings,” Frederick said. “Passes were perfect. We kept doing good things. We had scrappy plays. We were going for all the balls and getting them over.”

The Cavs rotated in several reserves late in the match, and the Rockets made a seven-point run before back-to-back Rock Falls errors closed it out.

“It’s always tough to play L-P on their home floor,” Rock Falls coach Jolene Bickett said. “We started off really well. Our serve-receive was on point, and we were able to mix up our offense. Then in the second set, our serve-receive wasn’t as good. Our setter was setting it from the 3-point line, so that’s tough. We start to get tip happy.

“L-P is always going to hit the ball and block well, but I thought their defense was the best part of their game tonight.”

For L-P (7-1), Duttlinger had eight kills, eight digs and seven points; Fredericks had six kills and six digs; and Jereb contributed 11 assists, eight points and six digs.

The Cavs will now be on the road until Sept. 17 when they host Streator.

L-P won the sophomore match 25-14, 27-25. At the freshman level, L-P Red won 25-13, 25-14, and L-P Green lost 25-19, 25-11.