PITSBURG – The Tri-Village Lady Patriots defeated the homestanding Franklin Monroe Lady Jets 3-0 in CCC Monday night volleyball action to stay undefeated in Cross County Conference play.
“We’ve had this goal to start the season,” said Tri-Village coach Chris Brewer. “If you look at the banners in our gym, the last time we won the conference was 1990 so that’s been the priority this season. Trying to get a conference, trying to get our “2020” up there on the banner.”
The Lady Jets jumped out to a 6-2 first set lead before Tri-Village battled back to knot the score at 6-6, 7-7, 10-10 and 11-11 and grab a 16-12 lead bringing a timeout from the Franklin Monroe bench.
The Lady Jets kept it close in losing 25-22 with Tri-Village using the opening set win to take a 1-0 lead.
“When we started the season I wasn’t sure that it was going to come down to this week and especially with FM,” said Brewer. “Coach Filbrun lost a lot of good girls last year and they just keep coming back. Same style of volleyball., they play good defense, they play hard, they serve tough and I was expecting a battle tonight.”
Set No. 2 had Franklin Monroe leading 8-6 with Tri-Village calling for a timeout. The Lady Patriots used an 11-6 scoring run to lead 17-14 bringing a timeout from the Lady Jets. An 8-3 Tri-Village run closed out the second game of the night giving the visitors a 2-0 lead with a 25-17 win.
The third set went to Tri-Village by a second 25-17 score on the night but not before the Lady Jets battled back from a 9-1 deficit to tie the score at 14-14. The Lady Patriots closed out the night with a 11-3 run and take the match 3-0.
“In the huddle before the third match I said, ‘lets work hard for a lead and maybe we can put this team away early,’ and I thought we might have got to that point and then FM just battled back,” said Coach Brewer. “It just proves that Coach Filbrun’s teams come to battle every night. They play good defense, they don’t make many mistakes and they were able to battle back – but we got back and made some good serves.”
The Franklin Monroe volleyball team was coming off two complete weeks of shutdown including practices.
“FM had some unfortunate circumstances hit them last couple weeks and they missed some volleyball,” Brewer noted, “so there was a little bit of rust, but it was a good match.”
“When you take two weeks off and we have only practiced twice since then, it’s tough playing a big team like that,” said Coach Filbrun. “Give credit to them. They kept us off all night, they were hitting our spots, they were serving us tough and they did an excellent job. They deserve that win.”
Coach Filbrun looks for the Lady Jets to soon return to form closing out season play and heading into upcoming tournament action.
“We have tough week this week,” Filbrun noted as the team makes up postponed matches. “We have another conference game Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday so that is only two days of practice but we will be ready to go. We will be finding our rythym again and hopefully make a run in tournaments.”
