Following a tough loss a week before, the Pioneers won their two home matches in the Student and Convocation Center.In practice, the Pioneers addressed the issues they had with their first ball contact and when playing conference foe Midway College, it was a straight set victory.“It was a confidence booster,” defensive specialist Amanda Ardinger said in a phone interview Sunday. “We didn’t know what to expect from Midway so we just went out there and played our best.”The Pioneers started out slow once again; however, they overcame this by relying on their offensive attack as well as staying disciplined while waiting for winless Midway to make a mistake. The first set was tied at nine, before the Pioneers went on a gigantic run to win 25-10.The second set was closely fought once again as the Pioneers held a 13-12 lead at the halfway point. This would soon change, as Point Park went on another large run to take the set 25-17.It seemed that nothing could possibly go wrong for the Pioneers in the third set as they won 25-6 to take the match. They won the last 11 points of the set to take the match.Outside hitter Kirsten Burkes came in towards the end of the set and her two kills ended the match.“I try to help out the team in any way possible,” Burkes said in a phone interview Sunday. “Any opportunity to get in there, try to get a kill and helping the team out is what I’m there to do.”Livia Caluori and Nicole Wurstle led the offense attack for the Pioneers in the match as they registered 11 and eight kills. Caluori also added five blocks and libero Alyssa Hall and Ardinger each had six kills to lead the team.“We were pretty happy with how we played,” Assistant Coach Neal Brown said in a phone interview Saturday. “We definitely composed ourselves well before and during that match as opposed to the week prior. It was a more complete match and more in tune with our fundamentals and that’s what we worked on the previous week.”The Pioneers have also dealt with serving inconsistencies this season; however, they had 11 aces in this match as Hall and Margaret Gillooly led the team with three each.The Pioneers would be in for a much bigger test against former American Mideast Conference foe Shawnee State University.Early on, Shawnee State had control of the first set taking a 10-6 lead, but a kill by Ashley Campbell helped the Pioneers start a comeback. From there, Chelsea Katkich would serve two aces, allowing Point Park to completely seize momentum of the first set and take it by a 25-18 score.Burkes, who made an impact at the end of the Midway match, had a more regular role as she was a part of the serve rotation against Shawnee State, something she had a conversation about with head coach Mike Bruno.“We had talked about it and he said he wanted to put me behind there for serving and I was more than happy to help out with that,” Burkes said.The teams switched sides in the second set, and the set stayed even until the midway point. At that point, things swung in the favor of Shawnee State who kept a steady lead and up 22-20 won the final three points of the set to square the match.The third set would tell an entirely different story as the Pioneers raced out to a 10-4 lead, adding two more aces and steady play in doing so. From there Point Park continued growing its lead before winning the set 25-13.Winning a set by that big of a margin may have intimidated Shawnee State, but they were unfazed as they had a 16-9 lead in the fourth set.While the Pioneers tried changing the pace of the set, Shawnee State seemed to find a crack in the Point Park defense in taking the third set by a 25-19 score.“I think Shawnee woke up a little bit between the sets,” Brown said. “They definitely came out more offensively and were more consistent. We weren’t as offensive in that set as we were in the others.”Ardinger agreed and believed a couple of small miscues made the difference.“It’s easy for momentum to change in volleyball,” Ardinger said. “We had a couple of breakdowns and it was easy for them to get the lead.”With the score tied, the match would come down to a final set where, to win, a team must score 15 points or win by two points should 15 points not be enough to win the match.“It’s a little bit harder going into a fifth set having dropped the fourth set, because you had the 2-1 lead,” Brown said. “You have to shift the momentum back on your side.”Every point mattered in the set and when the Pioneers had a 4-2 lead, it appeared as though they had something; however, Shawnee State tied the match and had an 8-7 lead as the teams switched sides.The Pioneers then had an important stretch where they won the next three points of the set to take a 10-8 lead. Once again, Shawnee State would come back and tie things at 11.In the end, though, the Pioneers persevered as Katkich, Caluori and Tayler Pugliese would add kills to give the Pioneers a match point they would convert to win the set 15-12 and defeat Shawnee State.“I was kind of proud in how we kept things together and kept our composure in the end,” Brown said. “We didn’t fold after a couple errors we had in that set. We were able to stay focused and earn those last couple of points.”According to Ardinger, everything came together in the match.“They’re a good team and we knew they were going to be a lot tougher than Midway and we had to put our best out there and just focus,” Ardinger said. “It was an exhausting match and we were working so hard and the great feeling of winning is just relief.”Now 12-2, the Pioneers took their 2-0 Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to Carlow University where they played city rival Celtics. Carlow has seven freshmen which, according to Brown, meant there was more of an unknown going into the match as opposed to recent years.