ATHOL — Playing a brutal regular-season schedule is already paying postseason dividends for the Frontier Regional girls volleyball team.
The sixth-seeded Red Hawks won their second straight postseason match and kept the drive for a dozen consecutive sectional titles alive with a 25-17, 17-25, 25-17, 25-21 victory over No. 3 Athol in the Western Massachusetts Division 3 Tournament quarterfinals Monday night at Mallet Gymnasium.
Frontier (9-11) will play No. 2 Mount Greylock (17-2) in a semifinal matchup Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in Williamstown.
“(Greylock) is gonna pose a tough challenge,” said Frontier coach Sean MacDonald. “They have a 6-foot-4 middle (hitter), and she’s gonna be tough to stop.”
The Red Hawks had struggled in the first set and gave away an early lead in the second set to head to Set 3 tied 1-1.
Hope Parker had served Athol to a 4-0 lead in the third set and it appeared that the Red Raiders could have Frontier’s proverbial number, but the Red Hawks responded with a rally down 5-1.
Selayna Bathurst reeled off three of her team-leading 14 kills during the run, and Ela Deane’s service ace gave the Red Hawks their first lead of the set, 9-8.
After an exchange of points, Lauren Davenport served for three straight points to extend the lead to 13-10, and Athol never got closer than three points for the remainder of the set. Grace Randall served out the set with kills from Davenport and Penelope Hosley. Randall finished off the set with one of her team-high six aces.
Athol (17-4) bolted to out to a 12-4 lead behind three aces from Jess Soucie, solid defense from Abby Leadbetter and Parker’s all-around effort. But a Davenport kill stopped the run.
The Red Hawks began to rally methodically behind the net play of Davenport (11 kills, 12 digs, two aces), Hailey Orloski (three kills, five digs) and Hosley (five kills, four digs). They eventually grabbed an 18-17 lead on an ace from Sarah Zoly (two aces, six digs) — a lead that Frontier would not relinquish.
Deane — who racked up 39 assists, eight digs and three aces — closed out the match with an ace.
“I was proud of the girls. This was a real gut-check,” MacDonald said. “We had a rough start, then a rough second set, but I liked the response in the third set, and being down eight in the fourth set, to come back like that was great.
“I’ve got to credit Athol, they fought hard and had a great season, and they gave us everything we could handle.”
Frontier trailed early in all three sets it won, including 3-0 in the opening set behind two aces from Parker.
The Red Hawks used Davenport’s net presence and Deane’s serving to take a 6-5 lead. Then, after Athol quickly regained the advantage, Frontier battled back again and went up 10-9 before pulling away behind Hosley and Orloski’s serving, and some timely defense. Frontier wrapped up the set on three Athol unforced errors.