COLLINSVILLE — A hard kill from Emily Stahl and three straight aces from Gwen Hunter hinted of a major momentum shift opening the second set for Alton volleyball on Tuesday night.

The Redbirds could not sustain it.

The Collinsville Kahoks overcame a six-point deficit midway through the set to finish off a 27-25, 25-20 Southwestern Conference victory over the Redbirds at Fletcher Gym.

“We started off the right way,” Alton coach Stacey Ferguson said of her team’s quick four-point lead in game two, “and we let them turn it around and get the momentum shifted.”

Collinsville actually staged a pair of momentum swings erasing Alton leads of 5-1 and 13-7 to earn the win that pushes the Kahoks to 4-8 and 3-1 in the SWC. Alton, which had won six of its previous nine matches, drops to 9-9 and 1-1 in the league.

“They’re always a really good team, a strong, solid team, smart,” Ferguson said of the Kahoks. “We had our moments where we did a nice job against them. At the end, obviously, they pulled through.”

The Redbirds and Kahoks split their SWC matches the past two seasons, with each winning on the other’s court. Collinsville held serve at home Tuesday to win for the fourth time in five matches after a 0-7 start.

Lynna Fischer’s five-point service run gave the Redbirds an 11-9 lead in the opening set before the Kahoks responded with a 7-0 run to regain control. Alton battled back to take a 19-18 lead, but Collinsville pulled out the win after ties at 24 and 25 with two kills from Hannah Scrum.

“We started playing their game and stopped playing ours,” Ferguson said of her team’s difficulties in both sets. “We quit doing what we do there at the end when the pressure was on. … We just had to continue to execute the game the way we practiced. We kind of let up, let some calls get in our head and affect the way we played.”

The Redbirds got five kills from Stahl and four from Sydney Schmidt. Stahl and Schmidt join Hunter and Fischer as six-rotation players in Alton’s lineup along with libero Grace Kane and attackers Abbigail Powers, Janelle Rose and Rachel Holmes.

Alton served for six aces in the match with just four service errors, but Ferguson lamented her team’s refusal to keep swinging rather than settling for tips and roll shots that sustained volleys, but scored few points.

“We’re not a tipping team,” Ferguson said. “We have no height. We’re never going to win the tipping battle against height. I liked that when we were swinging, we were doing a good job. Making adjustments, hustling after the ball. I’m proud of them for that.”