BROOKVILLE – It was a battle between two second place teams – the Franklin Monroe Jets are in second place in the CCC and the Brookville Blue Devils who are in second place in the big school division of the SWBL. It was the last game of a four game stretch on the road for the Lady Jets. Although it took four hard fought sets, the Lady Jets would succumb to Brookville: 23-25, 25-21, 19-25 and 23-25.
Brookville has an overall taller front line and that made it harder for the Jets to attack. They had to adjust and that seemed to take them out of their game. When the Jets were able to attack, the Brookville second line did a good job of digging the ball. It was difficult for the Lady Jets to get into a good rhythm. Franklin Monroe had a lot of blocks with Corina Conley leading the team in that category, but Brookville’s Summer Scherer came to the net strong and accumulated a lot of kills.
In the first set the Lady Jets got off to a slow 1-6 start. They managed to close the gap late in the set. Both Corina Conley and Chloe Peters had kills during this charge. The team tied the score at 22-all when Belle Cable got a kill from the back line, but Brookville fended off the late charge to escape with a critical first set win.
In the second set, the Lady Jets had more push shots and attacks from the second row. They got off to a stronger start and the two teams battled with the score being tied four times. After the score was tied at 19-all, the Jets got the lead and wouldn’t let go. Chloe Peters scored a kill with a push shot, Conley scored off of a block and Chloe McGlinch got a kill to seal the win as the Jets outscored the Blue Devils 6-2 for the win.
The third set was about momentum. Again the Franklin Monroe allowed the Lady Blue Devils to charge out to an early lead 7-1. After Coach Filbrun took a time out to focus the team, they went on a run of their own and tied the score at 8-all. But after the tie it seemed like the team paused to catch their breath and Brookville took back the momentum with another 7-1 run and kept that lead the rest of the set.
The Jets fought gallantly in the last set. It was the most hotly contested set of the night with 11-ties. The last tie was at 23-all – the set would come down to the wire, but it was the Blue Devils who got the last 2 points of the night to seal the victory.
A road weary Franklin Monroe team will get to play the last three matches of the season at home. They still have some tough matches left to play with Houston, Mississinawa Valley and Troy Christian visiting next week.
