CHOCOWINITY — Following a five-point comeback from Lejeune in the third and final game of the match Tuesday night, Southside head volleyball coach Rosalyn Grimes signaled to the referee for a timeout.

The stoppage was granted, but there was an unnerving silence in the huddle. Southside had held the lead in some capacity in each one of the three games, only to have it snatched away. Finally, about 40 seconds into the timeout, sophomore Andrea Waters attempted to motivate the team. At that point, however, it appeared to offer little solace.

Tuesday’s 3-0 loss to the Devil Pups was nothing out of the ordinary for Southside, a team in the midst of one of the worst seasons in team history at 0-13. As for the awkward exchange during the timeout, Grimes is using the final weeks of the regular season to cultivate leadership from a young team in desperate need of a voice. She’s stepping back during timeouts and postgame talks, opening the floor for one of her players to take the reigns and step up.

“Individually, I have six great volleyball players. However, I have six individual great volleyball players,” Grimes said. “You don’t want that, you want a team. And we’re just not there yet.”

The divide between the seniors and up and coming freshman present in the beginning of the season is still intact, the communication unreliable and movement on the court erratic at times. Clearly playing with their emotions on their sleeves, the Seahawks seem to be riding a wave, following spurts of cohesion with dilapidation.

And while the divide will likely persist through the final three games, all is not lost. Grimes sees the season as the product of growing pains, a young team trying to find an identity.

“It’s tiresome, stressful, but this is what I always say, you’ve never seen a person reach the top of the mountain without first going through a valley,” Grimes said. “I feel like this season is our valley. In order to get there, we have to go through this rough spot. It’s going to make me better as a coach, it’s going to make the players better because the ones coming from the one-loss season in middle school (at P.S. Jones), it’ll bring them back down to Earth.”

Southside began the first game on one of its signature sporadic surges, as Waters and freshman Symone Ruffin confidently moved the ball at the front of the net, but Lejeune would eventually respond. Senior Marina Robles and junior Kaitlyn Bryson recorded multiple kills and gave the Devil Pups a six-point lead.

Again, Southside tied the game up at 18, but could not close, dropping the first game, 25-19.

After jumping out to a four-point lead in Game 2, spurred by two kills from Ruffin, Lejeune finished on a 10-3 run to close out the game, 25-16.

Southside secured its largest lead of the match in the third game, starting on a 10-2 run, but once again, communication problems stunted the Seahawks’ momentum. The Devil Pups tied the game at 23 and two unforced errors by the Seahawks, which closed out the match.

“Lejeune looked like a better team than us out there tonight because they talked, continuously,” Grimes said. “All six of them were saying something at the same time. We were like crickets.”

The Seahawks will embark on its toughest three-game slate to date to close out the 2014 season. With Pamlico County, Northside and East Carteret ahead, the top-three teams in the Coastal Plains Conference, Southside will look to lay it all on the line and put an end to a winless year.

“I would like them to get a win out of the season, but first I’d like them to grow as a team,” Grimes said. “We need to learn to trust each other.”