Rarely is it when a team can not feel bad about a loss. For the Prince Edward County High School volleyball team, Tuesday night's 3-2 defeat to undefeated Southampton may be one of those instances.

“It was the best losing effort I've been a part of,” said PECHS head coach Bruce Bogese. “We played well most of the night, and it was the best game we've had all year.”

It is high praise considering it was an in-district loss at home.

“When I told this to the girls, you could see that they didn't know how to take it,” said Bogese, adding that he would still like to have an ugly win over a pretty loss. “But there are times when we win, I'm not happy about the way we played. This is just the opposite. We lost, but we played well.”

Prince Edward (13-3, 3-1 SSD) won the first set 25-21. Down 13-6, Amie Dews ran off eight-straight service points to put the Lady Eagles ahead, and take the early lead.

The second set wasn't as kind. Southampton (11-0, 4-0) used its height and power to its advantage, to win 25-9.

“As good as we looked in the first set, we looked equally as bad in the second. It was bad to start out, and it stayed that way.”

Prince Edward held a seven point lead midway through the third set, but Southampton chipped away at the Lady Eagles advantage and squeezed out a 25-23 victory. “That took us down a little bit. We were up 23-20, but they won the serve and managed to finish us off.”

In the fourth game, Southampton jumped out to an 8-1 lead, before Prince Edward rallied to take a 25-23 victory.

“The crowd was going nuts,” said Bogese. “It's the loudest I've experienced in this gym. Both fan bases were into it, and it was a fun atmosphere.”

Prince Edward took a 10-6 lead in the fifth set tiebreaker, but was unable to hold onto the lead in the short set to lose 15-11.

“It was almost the same thing that happened to us in the third game. They got the right match-up and stuck it to us.”

It was our best blocking match of the season, considering that we don't block that much. For the most part, we played to our strengths. We attacked hard when we had the opportunity, and didn't let them dominate us, except for that second game.”

The loss snapped a nine-game win streak for the Lady Eagles.

On Thursday, PE was scheduled to host Park View, and will travel to Brunswick next Tuesday, before returning home on Thursday, October 20 for Senior Night against Greensville.