SOUTH DEERFIELD — In No. 1 Frontier’s first set against No. 17 South Shore Voc-Tech, it seemed like the Redhawks were invincible.
Though South Shore got the first point of the night off a good rally, Frontier rapidly took control of the game, at one point putting together a 13-2 run together to cruise out to a 21-6 lead.
The rest of their match wasn’t always that easy, but the Redhawks never wavered, putting together a three-set victory (25-9, 25-15, 25-13) to earn a spot in the Round of 8 in the state Division 5 volleyball tournament. Frontier will face off against No. 8 Douglas on Friday at 5 pm.
“I think that our confidence is something we’ve really been working on this whole year,” Frontier senior Jillian Apanell said. In the beginning of the year, we were really shaky, and I think as we progressed throughout the season and our team has bonded stronger, we’re really confident on the floor – especially our serving has gotten a lot better.”
The Redhawks’ serving was one of their strengths against South Shore – the home team put up 16 aces against the Vikings. Even when they didn’t record an ace on the score sheet, Frontier used its serves as a weapon all night, putting South Shore on its heels as it struggled to return them.
“A big part of our defense is serving. People thing serving is offensive, but it’s really defensive because we’re giving you the ball and we’re expecting you to give it back after I do,” Frontier coach Sean MacDonald said. “I think our serving disrupted some of the things – they have some good hitters and they didn’t get to show them as much as I’m sure they would like to because we kept them from being able to pass well and run their offense.”
While the first set went just about as well as it could go, the second and third sets were a bit more difficult for Frontier. The Redhawks got off to a solid start thanks to a pair of aces from Apanell and a couple of kills from Eve Dougan and Caroline Deane. Frontier built up a solid lead, building an 11-point gap at one point and leading 20-9. But South Shore put together a 6-5 run to end the set, and while Frontier still secured the win, that momentum carried over into the third set for the Vikings.
Neither team built more than a two-point lead to start the third set, with South Shore at one point building up a three-point gap, its largest lead of the night. After spending the whole game forcing South Shore off its passing game, Frontier was now struggling to get the ball up where they wanted it.
“We were struggling to kind of pass it off the net for Sydney (Scanlon). It’s really hard when we pass it too close to the net and she’s always trying to jump and get it out of the net, especially with some of the bigger hitters on the other team,” Apanell said. “So we talked about staying calm, passing off the net, doing what we know how to do and just remembering who we are.”
With the score tied 8-8, something clicked for Frontier and they went on a 10-1 run to surge back out in front. From there, it was relatively smooth sailing for the home team. Apanell finished the game with a team-high five aces, Deane notched nine kills and setter Scanlon coordinated the offense effortlessly, posting 18 assists in the win.
“I could be biased, but I consider her one of the best setters in the state, certainly around here. She’s just really smooth,” MacDonald said on Scanlon. “We can get her the ball, we’ve got this setter that can run all these plays, that can do the quicker tempo stuff and set in different areas of the net, behind her head and overhead and things like that. She’s just been just so solid for us for years.”
Field hockeyDiv. 4 Round of 16
Lynnfield 2, Pioneer 1 – It was a Herculean effort from the Panthers on Tuesday.
No. 12 Pioneer battled on the road in eastern Mass. and nearly sprung an upset to get a second Franklin County school into the Div. 4 quarterfinals. No. 5 Lynnfield held on, advancing to the final eight with a narrow 2-1 victory.
Kelseigh Sargent tallied the goal for the Panthers (11-3-2), which had defeated Littleton in the Round of 32 to earn a spot in Tuesday’s tilt.
Pioneer goalie Kelly Baird made three saves, as Lynnfield held a 5-3 edge in shots on goal. Both teams earned seven penalty corners.
Lynnfield will play at No. 4 Monomoy in the quarterfinals.
Staff reports included