TROY – Darke County rivals, the Lady Jets of Franklin Monroe and the Ansonia Lady Tigers met in OHSAA DIV tournament play with the Lady Jets coming out on top by a 3-0 score but not without a fight from the Lady Tigers.
“We knew it was going to be tough,” Franklin Monroe coach Angie Filbrun said. “They are a scrappy team and they are a great team throwing that ball back over there. We never know where it is going to come from but we had to calm down a little bit.”
“A loss is obviously not what we want but they fought hard,” Ansonia coach Darcy Buckinghan said. “This season has been a great season for us. We’ve grown tremendously from last year to this year.”
The Lady Jets team numbers five seniors while the Lady Tigers have a single senior on the roster.
“I have five seniors out there and they wanted it and they knew right now we don’t have any other chances,” Filbrun noted. “You have to step up and they did, they did a great job.”
The two teams played an earlier October CCC match going the limit with Franklin Monroe getting a 3-2 win with less that a point per set separating the teams. The Lady Jets took the earlier match by a five set total score of 106-102.
The opening set saw the game with 6 ties before Franklin Monroe moved out to a 15-10 lead bringing a timeout from the Franklin Monroe bench. The Lady Tigers battle back to knot the score at 22-22 in what proved to be the first of 6 ties to close out play with the last coming at 28-28 only to have Franklin Monroe score the final 2 points to earn a 30-28 win that saw a total of 12 ties in the set.
“We just had to keep battling, next ball, what are we going to do next,” continued Filbrun. “We make a mistake, we have to fight back and they did, they came out on top.”
Set No. 2 had Ansonia jumping out to a 9-3 advantage with the Lady Jets using a timeout. The Lady Tigers stretched their lead to 9 points leading 16-7 before Franklin Monroe used a 12-3 run to knot the score at 19-19.
The set would see ties at 20-20, 23-23, 24-24, 25-25 before the Lady Jets scored the final 2 points to win 27-25 and lead 2-0.
“Saturday morning ballgames, we struggle to get things rolling but give Ansonia a lot of credit,” Filbrun said of set No. 2. “They came out to play ball today and we fought through it. We battle through and we got that win.”
Franklin Monroe opened set No. 3 with a 6-1 lead and never looked back on its way to a double digit 25-14 third set win to advance in tournament play with a 3-0 tournament victory.
“We had to battle for every single point but we did come out on top,” Coach Filbrun stated. “Survive and advance and that is what we are doing.”
“We’re young,” said Coach Buckingham.”We’ll be back and be a force to be reconded with next year.”
