NEW WASHINGTON — Over the years, Colonel Crawford has had very little success against Buckeye Central, not having beaten the Buckettes in 12 years.
And the first time the two teams met on Aug. 30, the Buckettes swept the Eagles in three games.
So, in the rematch Thursday night in New Washington, Crawford wanted to change its luck.
The Eagles came out and took control of the game early, taking the match to the Buckettes and coming away with a 25-18, 25-11, 25-11 win.
With the win, Crawford improved to 5-3 in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference, 11-3 overall, while Buckeye Central dropped to 4-4 in the league, 7-7 overall.
Colonel Crawford coach Taylor Kelso said that her team needed to come out quickly to get some confidence against BC.
“We just beat Buckeye Central in three and I don’t know the last time that we’d done that,” Kelso said. “So, it is just awesome, and I am very proud of my team. They worked their butts off today.”
Kelso also felt that her team needed to be more aggressive against the Buckettes.
“I’m so proud of my girls,” Kelso said. “I told them that it was not going to be easy, and we came out and we just fought. We fought. We were aggressive at the net; we were aggressive on defense and serving and we came out and won as a team.
“We knew that they had some strong hitters and we just had to stay aggressive, and we did that,” she added.
Buckeye Central coach Missy McDougal said that her young team simply wasn’t ready to play.
“I think we came out flat to start the game, we didn’t quite start like we expected to,” McDougal said. “The girls kinda put themselves in a little bit of a hole.
“Their youth and inexperience hurt us a little bit there because we didn’t seem ready, we kinda lost that fire and we never really recovered from that.”
Buckeye Central never led in the match, as Crawford took control quickly, outscoring the Buckettes, 11-3, midway through the first game to take a 17-8 lead. BC cut the lead to 18-13 before Crawford outscored BC, 7-5, to end it.
In the second game, a Mia McDougal kill cut the Crawford lead to 4-3 before Crawford scored six of the next seven points.
After BC got the lead down to 7-5, Crawford then scored 10 of the next 11 points to seal the outcome.
In the third game, the Eagles scored 14 of the first 17 points of the game and BC could never recover.
“Our defense really killed us the first time we played them, so coming in tonight, we knew we had to play hard and not give up any points,” Kelso said.
“(Crawford) played aggressive and I think we were a little bit defensive,” McDougal said. “We gave them too many free balls and they capitalized on that. Hats off to them, they played a good game.”
For Buckeye Central, a team that has four freshmen and three sophomores on their 10-person roster, McDougal said that her team still has a lot to play for.
“Our season’s not over,” McDougal said. “This kinda takes us out of the league race for sure but we’ve got a sectional and district to prepare for and we still need to improve this team. We’re young and we have a lot of players coming back next year and we want to get better every game.”