ARCANUM – The No. 10 seed Covington Lady BUCCS knocked No. 9 seed Mississinawa Valley out of OHSAA DIV tournament action with a 3-0 first-round win over the Lady Blackhawks.
“We’ve played a lot of high competition this season just to prepare for tournament and try to make sure we’re ready to go,” said Covington coach, Ellie French. “I’m really happy with how we played today – it’s a good win.”
“Wasn’t really them tonight,” said Mississinawa Valley Coach, Nancy Whitted. “It’s not what I’ve seen them do before. Usually, they come scratching and crawling back but this time they kind of just laid down – gave it to them.”
The teams traded leads in the opening set to go along with multiple ties with the last coming at 17-17 before Covington would find its stride and close out the first set on an 8-2 scoring run for a 25-19 win and lead 1-0.
Set No. 2 mirrored set No. 1 with the lead swaying back and forth and tied at 4-4, 5-5, 6-6, 7-7, 9-9, and 11-11 with the Lady BUCCA using a 14-7 run to close out the second set to go up 2-0 with a 25-18 win.
“We focus a lot on serving, serving aggressively and making sure we’re keeping it inbounds,” French said, “and making sure we’re moving passes around back there.”
The third and final set of the night opened with Mississinawa Valley getting its final lead of the night at 6-4 only to have Covington double up the Lady Hawks at 7-14, 16-8, 18-9 to get its first double-digit lead of the night at 19-9 and extend its lead to 21-9 before settling on a 25-17 win to advance in tournament action.
“Everybody played well, everybody did their job,” Coach French stated. “I have a lot of girls that go in and out, different spots and they did a great job when they were called on doing what they needed to do.”
Playing their final high school volleyball game for the Lady Hawks were seniors Brenna Price, Makenna Guillozet, and Kenzea Townsend.
“All three were key players this year and definitely going to miss them for sure,” said Coach Whitted. “Their leadership and their skills are going to be missed for sure but they’re on to basketball now. They are good basketball players too.”
Coach Whitted weighed in on the 2024-2025 Lady Hawks volleyball season
“I have a lot of sophomores and juniors that are coming back,” she said. “We’ll have a freshman or two with the varsity team. We’re going to need another setter so we’ll see how it shakes out.”
With the win Covington improves to 12-11 overall on the season while Mississinawa Valley closes out the 2023-2024 season with a winning 15-8 record.
