CHICAGO HEIGHTS | Early in the second game of Wednesday night's volleyball match against T.F. South, Marian Catholic coach Stefanie Cravens called an important timeout.

The Spartans were up at the time, but Cravens could see her team falling back into the old habits that led to a 25-20 loss in the first game.

"The first game we let down, and in the second game there was that critical point where you could see that they were going to settle back into what they were doing," Cravens said. "So we called a timeout and said, ‘We cannot do that. We have to go after these guys.'"

Led by senior outside hitter Morgan Sullivan, Marian (3-4) responded to its coach, crushing the Rebels in the final two games to win the match 20-25, 25-11, 25-18.

Sullivan picked up five of her team-high 13 kills in the momentum-shifting second game.

"We talked more," Sullivan said when asked what made the difference after game one. "In the second two games we were communicating better and going for the ball.

"Then the sets were better and the passes were better too."

Missed hits, bad passes and service errors began to mount up in the final two games for the Rebels (2-2), and frustration began to sink in.

At that point it was as though the Spartans could sense blood in the water.

"Once we got going we started to get excited," Sullivan said. "We stopped getting down on ourselves."

On the flip side, each Marian point made life that much harder on the Rebels.

"I think when the frustration builds up we lose sight of what the endgame is," Rebels coach Kim Sands said. "And that is something we definitely need to work on as the season moves on."

The first game was neck-and-neck most of the way until Rebels senior Loran Pasko took the ball to the service line.

Down 20-19, Pasko converted on six consecutive serves to give South the game, and it appeared that the Rebels had made a statement.

So what was lacking after that?

"Intensity," Sands said. "We didn't come out with any intensity in the second game. We were making a few errors here and there, and we just never really got on a roll."

Senior Alyssa Wlodarczyk added eight kills for Marian, teaming up with Sullivan to form an unstoppable force at the net. The duo also combined for 15 digs and a 21-for-22 service performance.

Rhiannon Hanft led the Rebels with seven kills while Sophie Kessler added six.