WILLIAMSTOWN — Sean MacDonald only had one bit of advice for his team Wednesday night.
“Remember who we are.”
A simple message, but one that the sixth-seeded Frontier Regional School volleyball team could not overlook.
With their streak of six straight state championships and 11 straight western Massachusetts titles teetering on the brink, the Red Hawks remembered their championship credentials to pull out a 27-25, 16-25, 20-25, 25-20, 16-14 win over second-seeded Mount Greylock Regional School in the Western Mass. Division III volleyball semifinals, sending Frontier back to the title game at Holyoke Community College to face one of their biggest rivals in Lee.
“I don’t know if they surprised me but they impressed me,” MacDonald said of his Red Hawks. “With the youth that we have, we don’t have a senior on the roster, these girls have been to these games, but this is the first time they’ve been on the court for these games.
“I’m really impressed with (the girls) being able to keep their composure.”
The Mounties (17-3) put up a fight throughout as they looked to be the team to knock off greatness. Only, the greatness of Frontier (10-13) reared its beautiful head once again.
“My saying this playoff season is ‘It’s just us and them,’” Frontier’s Selayna Bathurst said. “The crowd on the sideline can add a lot of extra pressure, but mental toughness was a huge part of that game and I have so much faith in every single person on my team. We knew we had our backs, I didn’t doubt our team for a second. I knew we could do it.”
The rally in the fourth and fifth sets was nail-biting. After the Red Hawks rallied from a 7-1 hole in the first set to take the first point of the game, the Mounties responded with a dominant second set and then Jenna Benzinger tapped a ball over the net Frontier couldn’t dig out to decide the third set.
Frontier then extracted its revenge.
Working up to a 13-9 lead in the fourth set, Greylock pulled a point back to make it 13-10. Frontier, though, didn’t break with its season on the line. Over the final 22 points of the set, the Red Hawks built up a lead time and again to keep the Mounties from getting over the hump. When the Mounties sent a shot long at 24-20, the Red Hawks erupted.
“We have to clean up some errors,” MacDonald said of his message before the set. “They’ve got a big gun (Benzinger), she’s going to score points and we just have to control things that we can control.
“We try to make things hard for her, try to put the ball in a spot where its not as easy for her to see it come to the setter, just disrupt her. You’re never going to stop her. If we can clean up our stuff, we are going to be right in this.”
In the fifth set, Greylock raced out to a 4-1 lead when Carly Munzer dug out a ball and dropped it between the Frontier defense. That was as close as the Mounties got to winning the match.
Frontier took the next point, then used a service run by Lauren Davenport to build up a 6-4 lead. Frontier went to match point at 14-11 on a kill by Davenport, but Greylock mounted one last charge at the game and an ace by Munzer and a long hit by Frontier tied the game up at 14-14.
Frontier went back up a point and got service back, then finished the game off with Davenport holding serve.
“I thought it was pretty even all the way through,” Greylock coach John Albano said. “We just made some errors when we shouldn’t have. But so did they. It just went their way. They are a great team.”
Bathurst finished with 17 kills, 15 digs and 7 aces. Dean had 44 assists and 5 kills, while Davenport finished with 15 kills and 17 digs.
For Greylock, Benzinger had 15 kills and 2 aces. Dagny Albano had 5 aces, 29 assists and 2 kills. Autumn Delorey finished with 8 kills and Serena Chow had 6 kills and 6 digs.
Frontier will play for its 12th straight sectional title Saturday against top-seeded Lee. The Wildcats dispatched Lenox 3-0 in the other Wednesday semifinal. The game is scheduled for a 4 p.m. start. Lee defeated Frontier 3-2 earlier this season in Lee.
“I’m so excited,” Frontier’s Ella Deane said. “Lee is like our biggest rivalry. We lost to them in a close game, and we are really hyped to have that same rivalry at HCC — which is one of our favorite places to play.”