SOUTH DEERFIELD — The voyage for No. 15 has pulled into port.
Just one match stands in the way of the Frontier Regional School volleyball team’s 15th consecutive Western Mass. Division 3 championship, as the second-seeded Red Hawks punched their ticket to this weekend’s sectional final thanks to a 25-5, 25-21, 25-20 sweep of No. 3 Lenox in the semifinal round, Wednesday night at Goodnow Gymnasium.
Frontier (14-8) will meet No. 1 Lee (18-2), a 3-1 winner over Mt. Greylock in the other semifinal, for the Division 3 title on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at West Springfield High School. It’ll be the fifth consecutive year the two programs will play in the final, with the Red Hawks having won all four previous meetings.
“There’s a lot of new pieces,” began Frontier coach Sean MacDonald of this year’s club. “A lot of people expect (a trip to the title match). We’re in the gym sometimes working through a lot of ugly volleyball, especially in the beginning. There’s nothing guaranteed here. I think sometimes people on the outside lose track of how hard these girls work during the offseason to get there every year. Just because we’ve been there a bunch of times before, doesn’t score us any points in this game. Everybody that’s coming for you is playing loose.”
Junior outside hitter Olivia Deane finished with 13 kills to pace the Hawks, and the co-captain said that while expectations are always high for the program, it only serves as a motivating factor for a team with a lot of newcomers in key spots.
“We talk about legacy, that’s the elephant in the room,” Deane said. “But that motivates us, our passion for the sport. We’re all just really excited to play this game. Every time you go (to the finals), it’s exciting. It’s a great feeling.”
Wednesday’s semifinal match certainly got off to a promising start for the Red Hawks, as the squad took a commanding 19-2 lead right off the bat. A combination of dominant offense, led by Deane and Jalen Sullivan, and precise serving by Reilly Isler and Sydney Scanlon, helped Frontier cruise to an eventual 25-5 opening-set win.
“What really fed us was our service pressure,” said Deane of the fast start. “We built off one another and we got on a roll. A good start is usually an indicator of how the match is going to go.”
While Frontier made quick work of the Millionaires (17-5) in the first set, MacDonald cautioned his team that it wasn’t going to be an easy night.
“I think we talked about after that first set, we looked pretty smooth and we weren’t making many errors,” the coach began. “Lenox, I felt like, was making errors to help make that lead as big as it was. We talked after that first set, OK, we just punched Lenox in the nose. They’re going to shake it off and come back. We were expecting a response from Lenox, which we got. But we certainly looked smooth in the first set. When we control our errors, we look pretty good.”
Lenox rallied in the second set, getting off to a 10-5 start while taking advantage of some Frontier miscues. Back-to-back kills from Sullivan and Morgan Martineau late in the frame pulled the hosts ahead, 18-17, but it was 21-20 Lenox when MacDonald called a timeout.
Like they have time and time again throughout the past two decades, the Red Hawks responded. Sullivan put down a kill to set the tone, and Abbe Roberts subbed in and stepped to the service line with her team tied. The junior rattled off the final four points of the stanza, and Charlotte Doulette aided the cause with a block to help the hosts snag a 25-21 win and taking a commanding 2-0 set advantage.
“We have some offensive weapons that can put the ball down if we get an easy ball back,” MacDonald said. “There were some times when we gave (Lenox) too many easy balls and they got to set their big gun. It’s kind of a management of, is this the time to be conservative or go after it. Trying to play smart, and we tried to put pressure on the other team.”
The hosts never trailed in the third frame, keeping Lenox at arms’ length en route to the 25-20 victory that send them through to Saturday’s final.
“I feel pretty good about the way we played,” said MacDonald. “Lenox played really hard and pushed us.”
Sullivan joined Deane in double figures with 10 kills in the final home match of the senior’s career. Setters Olivia Rosewarne and Scanlon dished out 11 assists apiece, while Deane, Isler and Sullivan registered 13 digs each to pace the back row.
Now Frontier has two days of practice before Saturday’s rematch with Lee, which the Hawks swept just two weeks ago in South Deerfield.
“I’m really relishing being the underdog here, being the two-seed,” said MacDonald with a smile, referring to his team finishing below Lee in the Walker System’s ratings. “The math says Lee is supposed to win this. Put the pressure on Lee, they have to come through now.”