COVINGTON – The Arcanum Lady Trojans defeated the Covington Lady Buccaneers Monday night in straight sets on the BUCCS home court in non-conference volleyball action.
“It’s a long week, so we were not going to go four or five,” said Arcanum coach Jacie Holman following the sweep.
Covington jumped out to a 5-1 first-set lead and called a timeout with the Lady Trojans pulling within two and the board showing the Lady BUCCS up 10-8.
Arcanum pulled even and 13-13 and 16-16 before outscoring Covington 9-3, taking the opening set 25-19 and leading 1-0.
Set No. 2 had Arcanum taking an early 7-3 advantage and doubling up on the Lady BUCCS at 10-5 and 14-7 on their way to a double-digit 25-15 second set win.
The Lady Trojans opened third set play scoring two points for each of Covington’s single points at 6-3, 8-4, 10-5, 12-6, and extended its lead to 13-6 before the Lady BUCCS responded with a 8-3 scoring run to trail by two, 14-16 bringing a timeout from the Arcanum bench.
Arcanum scored three unanswered points out of the timeout to push its lead to 19-14 but a 6-3 Covington run made it a two-point Arcanum advantage with the score standing at 22-20 and the Lady BUCCS with the momentum. The Lady Trojans hung on and coasted to a 25-22 final set win, taking the match 3-0.
Coming up big for the Lady Trojans at the net were seniors Caroline Long, Grace Psczulkoski, and Kamryn Beisner.
“Everyone knows Caroline can hit it, but when you get some defense against her, you just don’t realize how amazing she is at reading that net and reading where the block is and just swinging away or being smart and tipping,” Holman stated. “Tonight she proved that she’s a blocker as well, and she just hangs and puts the ball away. Grace P and Kam do a wonderful job on the outside, where they can read their hitters well. They are talking to each other constantly to know if we are going line, cross. I don’t even have to coach them a lot; they’re fixing it on their own.”
With the win, Arcanum improves to 12-3 overall and stays perfect in the WOAC with an 8-0 record. The Lady Trojans look to defend their WOAC Title.
“We know right now we are looking pretty good, but we’re not celebrating until we are in that last set against Newton, and we are ready to go,” said Coach Holman. “We know that South is going to give us a run, and we know that Newton is going to give us a run, but if we play like we played tonight, I don’t think any is stopping us.”
Coach Holman took a moment to talk about her five seniors, Grace Psczulkoski, Grace Fry, Avery Leeper, Kamryn Beisner, and Caroline Long, a group of girls she has coached for four years at Arcanum.
“This group of girls I knew were going to be special, but they’ve proved themselves this year,” Holman said. “I knew that having these girls for four years was going to make a difference, and it has. These girls know from basketball last year (District Champions), and had a lot of success. They know that success last year, they know what that’s like, and they want that now in volleyball too, so they are carrying that over to this season, and I am proud of them.”
With the 2025 OHSAA tournament just around the corner, Coach Holman emphasized the importance of establishing early leads and winning upcoming matches in three sets.
“As we go into tournament time we can’t give a team a five or six point lead in the first set because we’re going to end up going more sets and we can’t finish like we just did because then we’re going to go more sets and when it’s a quick turn around we don’t have time to play an extra 20 or 30 minutes in the set,” Coach Holman stated. “We have to come in focused, ready to do the job and get out of there in as few sets as we can.”
