The girls on the Cedar Rapids Prairie volleyball team have turned the Linn-Mar gym into their favorite home away from home.

The 10th-ranked Hawks rallied for a 25-11, 20-25, 13-25, 25-23, 15-13 victory over the seventh-ranked Lions in an exciting Mississippi Valley Conference match Tuesday night.

The victory came just three days after Prairie topped Linn-Mar, 2-0, in the championship match of the Linn-Mar Invitational on Saturday.

The Hawks knew the Lions were looking for revenge Tuesday night after what happened over the weekend.

"I definitely think that win on Saturday made the target on our back a little bigger, but we are a team that can take that," said Prairie senior Kenzie Soeken, who ended the match with a vicious kill.

"We never want to lose to them," added Prairie smash-shot artist Kate Busswitz, who will play at Northern Iowa next year. "We're sick of losing."

The Hawks have done very little losing this season with an 11-1 record, including a victory over then-No. 1 Bettendorf earlier in the season.

Prairie won all six of its matches Saturday at the Linn-Mar tournament and the Hawks picked up where they left off Tuesday by rolling in the first set. Linn-Mar rebounded and won the next two sets and appeared headed to victory, but the Hawks shook it off and won the final two sets by two points apiece.

"It always feels good to come back from a deficit like that and be able to prove we can do that kind of thing and beat that kind of team," said Soeken, an outside hitter who will play volleyball and run track at Upper Iowa next year. "We don't give up and are always willing to fight."

Both teams traded magnificent plays on offense and defense.

"It was a great match, and we knew it would be," Prairie coach Lynnette Stecklein said. "Linn-Mar has a very nice team. We knew it would be a dogfight throughout the night. I wasn't surprised it went five (sets). We expected that."

Prairie looked a little out of sync in the 25-13 loss in Game 4, but managed to get it back together.

"We got a little flustered. Things weren't clicking for us," Stecklein said. "The momentum changed a little bit, and then we just had to get back to what we do best, and that's play together as a team. When they found that and got that energy back, we were a different team."

Prairie featured its depth with Busswitz, Soeken, Kendra Gaskill, Megan Oldenburger, Madison Bell, Haley Stecklein, Taylor Fisher, Jenna Wagemester, Rylee Blood and Kristin Wahlert all performing important roles.

"We don't have a weak rotation," Soeken said. "We have strong hitters all the way around and strong defense all the way around, so that definitely helps us."

Linn-Mar (12-3) also has a talented team with top players like Amanda Ollinger, Ellie Anderson, Carly Spies, Ariana Rolle, Megan Renner, Isabel Schminke, Rehgan Schmidt and Emilee McGowan. Ollinger, Spies, Rolle and Renner led the Lions in kills and Anderson was a force with her ferocious jump serves.