It’s not easy to play “Can you top this?” when you’re the defending conference player of the year.

Senior outside hitter Grace Ulatowski simply doesn’t dwell on it for Lemont.

“My priority is my team,” Ulatowski said. “I just want to be there for my teammates. I want to go far in our playoffs. That’s most important to me.

“Being player of the year gave me a lot of confidence, and obviously, I want to do it again. But my main thing is to bring up my team.”

She rode to the rescue Thursday night for Lemont in a 29-27, 18-25, 25-19 victory over host Evergreen Park in a South Suburban Conference crossover.

Ulatowski led Lemont (20-7, 11-0 SSC Blue) with 10 kills and six digs. Adyson DuVall added eight kills, while Keira O’Donnell had six blocks, Riley Conry contributed 15 digs and Jessica Rimbo recorded 12 assists.

Dora Cihocki paced Evergreen Park (15-13, 8-3 SSC Red) with 11 kills and five blocks. Maggie Tracy added seven kills and 12 digs, with Neve Hayes contributing six kills and 10 assists. Maddie Bruno had 12 assists.

The back-and-forth match came down to a critical sequence near the end of the third game.

Lemont trailed 17-16 when April Rice put down a kill to tie it up. That sent Ulatowski to the service line.

Her first two serves resulted in back-to-back kills by DuVall. The next two serves were aces. The next serve was returned, but Ulatowski stepped up again with an assist on a kill by Conry.

“Yep, that’s our team captain,” DuVall said of Ulatowski. “She’s my best friend and she’s our team MVP. She always finds a way to make even the most scary or nervous situations the best.

“She always finds a way to work around the ball. And she isn’t cocky or anything like that. She really thinks about the team more than she thinks about herself, to be honest.”

Ulatowski is doing a good job matching and even exceeding her superlative 2021 season.

She has 184 kills, 167 digs and 35 aces. She’s already 10 aces ahead of last year’s total.

Lemont coach Chris Zogata confirmed Ulatowski is definitely topping her past accomplishments.

“Grace is playing a ton better than she played last season,” Zogata said. “She really has upped and improved her game in every way.

“She has always been a solid hitter, but she has added some new shots to her repertoire. She worked on her passing and defense all during club. She’s one of the best athletes I’ve ever coached.”

Ulatowski’s bread and butter is hitting at the net, but she did her most important work against Evergreen Park out of the back row.

In the first game, Lemont trailed 17-13 when she served for four straight points. Two of them came on kills by DuVall.

“My main thing when I’m serving is just to get the ball over, especially in games like these that are really tough,” Ulatowski said. “I do want to ace them, obviously, to get us the point, but I don’t want to let my teammates down by missing a serve when it’s close.”

Meanwhile, her best friend came up clutch.

“In practice the day before, we worked on a lot of things we expected to see in this match,” DuVall said. “That gave me a lot more confidence.

“I knew that when I was getting set I needed to help my team get this win. Give a lot of credit to the setters. They set well, and it helped me hit well, too.”

And don’t forget the Grace factor.

“She helped keep our confidence up the whole game,” DuVall said. “We feed off her energy. She’s the rock of this team.”