Brookside has won three straight games at home, while Firelands has won three straight on the road, but those streaks won't matter much on Thursday. The Cardinals will welcome the Falcons at 6:30 p.m. Both come into the matchup bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
Brookside is headed into the match having just posted their closest win since August 23rd on Tuesday. They sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 3-2 victory over Black River.
Brookside took Black River into a fifth set where they got it done with a nine-point win. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 23-25, 26-24, 25-23, 17-25, 15-6.
Lily Schremp
| 10/07/25 vs Black River | 3 |
| 10/02/25 @ Wellington | 2 |
| 09/30/25 vs Oberlin | 2 |
| 09/25/25 @ Columbia | 1 |
| 09/09/25 vs Wellington | 1 |
Brookside can attribute much of their success to Alyssa Popowski, who had 12 digs and three aces, and Lily Schremp, who had 18 digs and three assists. Those three assists gave Schremp a new career-high.
They weren't the only good servers: Brookside was lethal from the service line and finished the match with ten aces. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now served at least five aces in 12 consecutive contests.
Meanwhile, Firelands made easy work of Keystone on Tuesday and carried off a 3-0 win.
The final score came out to 25-10, 25-17, 25-9.
Firelands' victory bumped their record up to 16-5. As for Brookside, their win bumped their record up to 8-11.
Brookside might still be hurting after the 3-0 loss they got from Firelands in their previous meeting back in September. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of the Falcons' Lexi Schrader, who had 11 digs and two aces. Now that the Cardinals know the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.
