COVINGTON – Franklin-Monroe junior Corina Conley was pretty proud of her teammates Wednesday night.
The Lady Jets shrugged off any lingering thoughts of a disappointing start to last year’s sectional tournament by defeating Cedarville in three straight sets 25-18, 25-15, 25-14 in the Division IV sectional tournament at Covington.
“I’m pretty proud of us,” said Conley, who led the team with 10 kills on the night. “I think everyone was nervous coming into today because of last year and what happened to us. We didn’t want that to happen again, so we ended up pushing through and playing hard.”
F-M had a record-breaking season a year ago entering the tournament with a 20-2 record and facing Sidney Lehman Catholic in the first round. But Lehman upended the Lady Jets in five sets spoiling what could have been.
“We tried to have last year in the front of our mind so we didn’t do that again, but then as we started to play we had to forget about it and not let the nerves get to us,” Conley said. “We had to continue to play even though that happened before. We had to come back and do better than we did last year. I’m pretty proud of us all. We played pretty hard.”
The first set with Cedarville started a little slow for the Lady Jets as well. F-M never got more than a three-point lead on Cedarville until an ace by Chloe McGlinch pushed her team to a 15-12 lead. They pushed forward from that to spot on a 10-5 run to close out the first set, 25-18. It was the closest margin of victory the Lady Jets would have the rest of the night taking sets two and three by scores of 25-15 and 25-14.
“I am excited,” FMHS coach Angie Filbrun said. “We started the second season off right with a win. It wasn’t probably our best, but we survived and we’re moving on. I think we had some nerves in that first set, but we just had to take a deep breath, calm down a little bit and realize we needed to go out and play our game and we did.
“The girls did a good job,” she continued. “Last season was absolutely on their mind. Coming into these games it doesn’t matter what your record is, teams are ready to play and you just have to be ready to go. We did a lot of good things last year so to lose in the first round was heartbreaking. Those girls worked their tails off and it was a tough one, but this is a new season and we are moving on.”
In addition to Conley’s 10 kills, McGlinch had 9 kills and 4 aces, Kloe Zink had 8 kills and 2 blocks, Chloe Peters had 6 kills, Brigette Filbrun had 15 digs and 18 assists, Kennedy Morris had 13 digs and 13 assists and Belle Cable also had 13 digs.
“I think it was a pretty good win,” Conley said. “I think we struggled a little bit in the beginning but then we picked it up and started communicating and ended up on top which is what we wanted.”
Franklin-Monroe advances to the next round to face Houston at 5 p.m. on Saturday at Covington. The Lady Jets beat Houston during the regular season.
