Freddies fall in five sets to CHCA in Div. III regionals
KETTERING — After the first two sets of the Division III Regional volleyball match Thursday, it wouldn’t have been surprising if the Fredericktown driver started up the bus for the long trip home.
But, that driver would have been sitting in the Kettering Fairmont parking lot for quite some time waiting on the finish of their match with Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy.
“When we went down two games, this game is so easy to say, ‘let’s get on the bus and go home.’ Anybody out there saw what happened, saw this team do something special. They did everything they could. We want them to remember the good things,” said Fredericktown assistant coach Marilyn Rutherford. “You’ve got in that locker room four seniors that their hearts are pouring out. ... That team (CHCA) played so well, it brought the best out of us. It’s hard to do what we did.”
What the Freddies (22-5) did was nearly pull off the comeback of the century.
CHCA (20-6) took it to the Freddies from the opening serve, scoring six of the first seven points. A 5-0 Fredericktown run, thanks to a couple of big blocks at the net, gave the Freddies some juice, but the Eagles turned it back around in a hurry with a defense that never let the ball hit the ground and perfectly placed hitting to make its own 6-0 run and go on to the first set victory.
The second set was a demonstration of dominance by the Eagles. A 9-1 run to start set the tone. Then, a 9-0 run put things away and started the Freddie fans thinking of the long drive home.
But, a couple of uncharacteristic errors by the Eagles and a big spike from Lindsey Boeshart got the Freddies’ engine started.
“I think we started playing point by point. We cleaned up our errors and our serve receive was better,” said Fredericktown head coach Shena Beheler. “We really started to work together instead of as six individuals.”
Then the Freddies cranked things up offensively, getting bigger hits that started to find some holes in what had been a tight CHCA defense. Big hits from the front line of Boeshart, her sister Kelsey, Hannah Vaughn and Summer Weller helped the Freddies win the next two sets and force a deciding game five.
That momentum carried forward for a bit in the fifth set, as the Freddies led 9-7. But, a couple of big blocks helped the Eagles score six straight to take a commanding lead they never relinquished.
The match is the last one for four Freddie seniors — Vaughn, Kelsey Boeshart, Paige Oswalt and Olivia Mast — who got the school back to the regionals for the first time since 2002.
“They are pretty invaluable. It’s a homesick feel to it (losing them),” Beheler said. “They showed the underclassmen how to do things — how to care, how to love.”
Rutherford coached these seniors when they were in middle school and said she knew there was something special about them.
“This was their goal, even in middle school. These seniors really showed they have what it takes,” Rutherford said. “We told them in middle school, don’t lose that edge and it will pay off. They kept up their end of the deal.”
Kelsey Boeshart led the Freddies with 13 digs, 12 kills, three blocks and two assists. Vaughn had 17 digs, eight kills, two aces and one block, while Mast dished out 35 assists and had 14 digs, and Oswalt had nine digs and one ace. Lindsey Boeshart came through with 25 digs, 14 kills and two aces, and Weller had 14 digs and eight kills.
