The Lady Buccs won their second straight game to start the season for the first time in three years..

August 31, 2006 - PITSBURG
The last time the Covington Lady Buccs volleyball team started the season 2-0 they went on to reach the district finals. That was three years ago when the current group of seniors were freshman.

It's too early to tell what the future holds for the Lady Buccs, but opening up the season with two straight wins over Fairlawn and Franklin Monroe is the start Covington coach Stephanie Robinson was looking for.

"It's good to have the first two games in the win column," said Robinson after the Lady Buccs swept Franklin Monroe in three straight games. "But we're not going to celebrate anything yet. It's along season."

Despite the three-game sweep of Franklin Monroe, it wasn't easy as all three games were close 25-21, 25-21, 25-19.

"It's nice to get the win, but we still need to play with more consistency," Robinson said. "We played very well at times, but we had some breakdowns in our focus."

The opening game of the match saw both teams knotted at 11-11 until Covington went on an 8-2 run to take a 19-13 lead. Franklin Monroe battled back to cut the margin to 23-21 before Covington close out the game with two straight points.

"We had them down in the first game and let the get some easy points," Robinson said. "When we get a team down, we have to learn to put them away."

The second game was a thriller as both teams played solid defense. The result was a close 25-21 score in favor of Covington.

"We played some of our best volleyball in the second game," described Robinson. "Franklin Monroe was just outstanding defensively. We were killing the ball and they seemed to get everything up."

Covington appeared to be running away with the third game as it jumped out to a 10-4 lead. Once again, Franklin Monroe would not go away and eventually closed to gap to 20-18.

After a Covington timeout, the Lady Buccs outscored Franklin Monroe 5-1 to take the final game and the match.

"Again, we had them down in the third game and let them come back," continued Robinson. "We shanked some serves and had some poor passes that took us out of our offense. If we want to be a great team we can't have those types of mental lapses on the floor."

However, Robinson was pleased with the effort of her team.

"The girls played hard and made some awesome plays," concluded Robinson. "We just need to develop the killer instinct and put teams away when we have them down."

With the win Covington improves to 2-0 on the season and 1-0 in the CCC. Next on the schedule is the home opener next Tuesday against Bradford, which is designated as "Student Night". The first 75 students who attend receive a free volleyball poster. Twenty t-shirts will also be given away.