Five years of playing together have given South River's Emily Cobb and Kristin Cooper plenty of advantages.

They showed Archbishop Spalding repeatedly.

Cobb and Cooper connected on a hard spike to set up game point in the third set, and they rolled through the fourth to give South River a 3-1 victory over the Cavaliers in volleyball yesterday.

"We work together so good," said Cooper, whose hard, right-handed drive put the Seahawks in position to take a 2-1 lead. "We've been together forever."

Cobb lifted a clean pass from the right side over to Cooper, who swung hard and split the Cavaliers' defense, placing the ball just out of Chelsey Toback's reach for a 24-19 lead.

Two plays later, Cobb pushed a return off Archbishop Spalding's Nikki Hurley for the 25-20 victory. The Seahawks (2-0) used the momentum to seal the match with a 25-14 victory in the fourth set.

"We're like best friends," said Cobb, who was 15-for-16 serving and had a match-high 28 assists. "As the game goes on, we get a lot more connected."

Cooper notched a match-high 11 kills, and Jackie Martin added eight for the Seahawks, who got 19 digs from Sami Moran en route to their first defeat of Archbishop Spalding (2-1) in three years.

South River won the first set, 25-22, before dropping the second, 25-17.

"For us to beat Spalding this early in the season, this is huge for us," Seahawks coach Maureen Carter said.

The Cavaliers, who welcomed Toback into the lineup after she sustained a concussion during the preseason, held small leads in every set, but could only capitalize in the second.

Toback had a team-high nine kills, Jamie Rombach added 10 digs and six kills and Bethany Hayden collected 16 digs. Rombach traded a give-and-go with Kristen Seeba - who was 16-for-16 from the line with 16 assists - and lined a shot down the empty right side for the winner in the second set.

"The second game, we just had a lot more momentum," said Toback, who began Archbishop Spalding's 18-4 run to transform an 8-4 deficit into a sizeable lead. "We were a lot more confident in the way we played. In the third and the fourth, we kind of lost the momentum and made a couple errors. We just didn't have the momentum."

Cooper and Cobb provided South River with more than enough in the fourth set.

After Hurley evened the score at 4 with a drive off Haley Jeffries' right foot, Cobb set Cooper up once more to give South River the lead for good.

"They didn't cover the middle and some of the corners, and I would just try to hit it in those spots," said Cooper, who drove Cobb's next pass between three defenders in the center of the floor for a 6-4 lead.

Archbishop Spalding trimmed South River's lead to 13-11 on Jeffries' long return. But Jeffries came back with consecutive aces and led the Seahawks' on a 12-3 run to seal the win.

"Some of our serve-receiving is where we're having some of our trouble," Cavaliers coach Scott Rombach said. "It's just a matter of talking to each other and making sure they know, playing next to each other enough and being ready to go after the ball."

The Seahawks lost a five-point lead during the middle of the first game and fell behind, 22-21. But an extra-hit violation by the Cavaliers returned control to South River, and Jamie Rombach's long return made it 24-22.

Cobb blocked Toback at the net on the next volley to capture the Seahawks' first set.

"Our team has a lot of heart this year," Carter said. "They have a lot of drive, a lot of heart. They really want it this year."