September 8, 2009 - COVINGTON
It wasn't the level of volleyball Covington coach Jim Smith expected his team to play, but the Lady Buccs did enough to overcome a scrappy Franklin Monroe team in four games on Tuesday.

"Defensively, we struggled a good bit," said Smith. "We were flat footed and our timing was off on our blocks. Our footwork wasn't as good as it should have been."

Covington jumped out to a big lead in the first game 14-3 and cruised to a 25-12 victory.

But the second game was full of unforced errors by the Lady Buccs and Franklin Monroe managed to squeak out a 26-24 win.

"We got out to a pretty good start in the first game, but for some reason we played on our heals in the second game," Smith explained. "Franklin Monroe is one of those scrappy type of teams and they were able to get some balls up that normally we put away. Suddenly we got out of rhythm and gave them some cheap points."

Covington rebounded in the third and fourth games, winning 25-10 and 25-17.

"Alyssa (Angle) and Caitlyn (Crawford) had pretty good nights offensively," said Smith. "Our serving was pretty good and our hitters were able to find the open spots later in the match."

Angle recorded 31 assists and 5 blocks, while Crawford led the Lady Buccs with 14 kills.

The loss drops Franklin Monroe to 2-6 overall and 0-2 in the CCC, while Covington heads into some big games with a 3-0 record on the season and 2-0 in league play.

"We have to get better for some big matches coming up," said Smith as his team travels to Bradford on Thursday before playing a gantlet next week consisting of Russia, Arcanum, Twin Valley South and Anna. "We'll focus a lot in practice on improving our defense."

An improvement Smith expects to see on Thursday at Bradford.