SOUTH DEERFIELD — The opening set of the Round of 16 matchup on Monday between Frontier and Georgetown saw the Redhawks make uncharacteristic mistakes while the scrappy Royals stuck around before Frontier pulled away late.
The Redhawks we’ve become accustomed to showed up in the second and third set.
No. 2 Frontier scored the opening 10 points in the second set which led to a 25-7 win and in the third set, the Redhawks opened up with an 8-0 lead en route to a 25-6 set win to sweep No. 15 Georgetown, 3-0, at Goodnow Gymnasium and move on to the quarterfinals
“They’re a scrappy team and a relatively new program,” Frontier coach Sean MacDonald said. “Credit to them, it’s their first year in the playoffs. We weren’t playing like us in the first set. We got back to being us by putting service pressure on, not missing serves, hitting them out of system, getting easy balls back and attacking with tempo.”
Like the Round of 32 win against Ware, it took a total team effort from the Redhawks (19-4) to get the victory.
Jillian Apanell looked unstoppable at times, putting down 17 kills and two aces. Eve Dougan and Elise Friedrichs each recorded eight kills, Lilah Evans had four kills and seven aces, and Caroline Deane smashed four aces for Frontier. Sydney Scanlon distributed 33 assists in the win.
“We lost a lot of seniors and really good players last year,” MacDonald said. “To be back where we are and have that depth and not have to rely on one person. Jill does a lot for us, but if she’s struggling, we have other people. Elise had some nice hits. Eve played well on the outside. We have a lot of good players.”
The opening set saw Georgetown pull within four late, 21-17, before Frontier scored the final four points of the set to pull ahead 1-0 with a 25-17 set victory.
Out of the 17 points the Royals scored, eight were from hitting errors by the Redhawks and six were service errors.
“If you give someone 14 points, you’re going to struggle,” MacDonald said.
That changed in the second set. Frontier roared out to a 10-0 lead behind three aces from Dougan, three kills from Friedrichs and two kills from Apanell. The lead ballooned to 17-3 and eventually the Redhawks took the set, 25-7.
The momentum gained from the second set carried into the third set for Frontier. Evans put down four aces while Apanell smacked a pair of kills to give the Redhawks an 8-0 lead. A Friedrich kill, two Apanell kills, an ace from Brooke Davis, a Dougan kill and a pair of Scanlon aces and suddenly the Redhawks held a commanding 17-2 lead. Evans closed out the set with a kill to send Frontier to the final eight.
Much of the success came from the service station. The Redhawks finished with 35 aces as a team and even when Georgetown was able to return the ball, the serves made it so it was an easy over ball for Frontier to control and turn into a kill.
“It’s a big part of what we do here,” MacDonald said of his teams serving. “It has been for a long time. People don’t think of it as a defensive thing but we think of it that way. We’re giving you the ball and you’re going to attack us so we’re going to give you the ball in a hard way. We’re looking for who passes well and who doesn’t pass as well and adjust where we serve to get away from the people who pass well. That adds up to an easy attack or no attack and we can counter attack. It’s a huge part of what we do.”
The Redhawks will host the winner of No. 7 Tri-County and No. 10 Douglas in the quarterfinals.