The Athens Bible volleyball team focuses on one thing more than any other during practice – defense. And that practice paid off as a stellar defensive performance led to a 3-1 victory Thursday over Lindsay Lane Christian.

Athens Bible bounced back from losing the first set to win the next three and remain perfect in area play.

“We tell our girls all the time just to play Trojan ball,” acting head coach Judith Shaver said. “We focus on each other on the court, and that leads to success.”

The match didn’t start out well for the Trojans, as Lindsay Lane overcame a 19-14 deficit to take the first set 26-24. The Lions then jumped out to a 7-1 lead in the second set. However, Athens Bible came roaring back and took the set 25-19.

The next two sets were controlled by the Trojans. ABS won the third set 25-18 and the fourth set 25-14 to win the match.

“Our team is very close,” Athens Bible’s Mackenzie Davis said. “(After the first set) we told each other that we had to turn it around and come back strong and take the next three sets, and that’s what we did.”

While many people focus on the kills and blocks at the net, Athens Bible was led by its extremely organized defense, which seemed to make no errors and numerous digs to save points.

“(Defense) is all we worked on this summer,” Davis said. “We do an hour of defense almost every practice. Our coach stresses that if we don’t have a pass, we can’t do anything else.”

Shavers — who is filling in for her daughter, Athens Bible head coach E.A. Shavers, while she is out on maternity leave — echoed Davis’ thoughts.

“We always say without a pass, you can’t play winning volleyball,” Shavers said. “We’ve played good team defense all season. The team as a whole works well together. It was an all-around effort for sure.”

Davis led the team with 34 assists and seven kills, while Katie Brackeen led the defense with 19 digs and Jantzen Flatt had nine digs. Ally Holmes had a great serving performance with nine aces to go along with eight kills. Josie Duke, Izzy Todd and Allie Sexton combined for 23 kills.

Athens Bible improved to 19-8 overall and 5-0 in area play while Lindsay Lane fell to 13-4 overall and 3-2 in area play. ABS defeated Lindsay Lane in both of the team’s meetings this season.