COVINGTON – The No. 5 seed Franklin Monroe Lady Jets earned a convincing 3-0 first round Tuesday night OHSAA D-IV tournament win over Champaign County’s Mechanicsburg Lady Indians coming in at the No. 13 seed.
“I knew it was going to be tough,” Franklin Monroe coach Angie Filbrun said of the tournament matchup. “I told the girls; they are going to come to play and they don’t give up, and we saw that. They did not give up but we didn’t either…so we came out of there with the win.”
The opening set of the night had the teams playing close with the Lady Jets leading 8-7 before taking advantage of five unanswered points to lead 13-7 bringing a timeout from the Lady Indians’ bench.
Mechanicsburg battled back to trail 19-18 and 21-19 only to have Franklin Monroe use a 4-0 run to take the first set by a 25-19 score.
Set No. 2 had the Lady Jets opening with a 7-3 lead and double up on the Lady Indians at 16-8. Mechanicsburg used a 7-2 run to trail 18-15 before Franklin Monroe made a 7-5 run to go up 2-0 with a 25-20 win.
The third set saw the Lady Jets open with an 11-4 advantage before the Lady Indians battled back to knot the score at 12-12 bringing Franklin Monroe’s first timeout of the night.
“We let them have like five or six in a row and I was like – ok, we just need to regroup here,” said Filbrun. “I told them, ‘when you have fun you play well even if we give up a few points in a row’ – if they have fun and work together, it’s all good.”
Mechanicsburg inched ahead 13-12 and 14-13 with the match seeing the game tied at 12-12, 13-13, 14-14, 15-15, 16-16 and 17-17. The Lady Indians got their biggest lead of the night, a two pointer at 19-17 on to have the Lady Jets run the table with a game ending 8-0 run to win the third and final set going away by a 25-19 score and advance in tournament play.
“We played really well – they played so well as a team,” said Franklin Monroe coach Angie Filbrun. “We had players step up and do big things in little moments that made a huge difference.”
“I’m so proud of them,” Coach Filbrun concluded. “They worked their tails off and they deserve it.”
The Lady Jets take on the No. 11 seed Riverside Lady Pirates, Saturday, October 19 at Covington High School in round two with a 12:30 p.m. start time.