Members of the Fredonia volleyball team celebrate during Wednesday’s Section VI Class B2 championship game against Southwestern at Lake Shore High School.
ANGOLA — Just a couple of years ago, the Fredonia girls volleyball program won only two games, but on Wednesday night at Lake Shore High School the Hillbillies found themselves playing for their first sectional title in 38 years.
Standing in the way of ending the title drought was familiar rival Southwestern, which was playing to defend its Section VI Class B title.
However, the 5-seeded Hillbillies handled No. 7 Southwestern just like they did in the regular season, winning the Class B2 final in four sets 25-18, 25-11, 18-25, 25-23, claiming their first title since 1986.
“My girls have been working very, very hard for this for a long time,” Fredonia head coach Amanda Krakowiak stated. “The core of this team has been together for the last three years, they’ve been young girls coming up with COVID and the numbers were kind of thrown off. That first year or two it was kind of like a jayvee team playing against other varsity teams. They’ve built their team chemistry, they’ve been working hard on their goals, they’ve been relentless and every year they have grown and improved. This has always been our goal. We’ve always been talking about this and I’m just so excited for them that they got to see their hard work pay off.”
After going up 2-0 it looked like the Hillbillies were on their way to a sweep, but Southwestern found its rhythm in the third set and suddenly had life. Southwestern had just one run of three points in each of the first two sets, but in the third the Trojans got off to a quick start and were able to limit the Fredonia runs.
OBSERVER Photo by Christian Storms
Fredonia’s Maddie Saunders sets a ball.
“We went in with two losses to them on the season so we knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Southwestern head coach Maddy Alexander said. “They definitely were in our heads to start. I know that the team in the beginning of the season would have crumbled after those two sets, so I’m super proud of them for coming back and playing their game to the very end.”
Fredonia appeared to not be fazed by the third set loss and stormed out to a 20-12 lead in the fourth set, putting the championship in reach.
Then the Southwestern runs came.
Trading short runs, Southwestern then scored six in a row to pull within one point of the Hillbillies at 22-23 which triggered a pair of timeouts from Krakowiak.
“When I called my last timeout there I just told the girls: be fierce, be fearless, stay aggressive, don’t back off and don’t let the nerves get to you. Play your game because that’s what is going to give you the success in the end. Trust yourselves and trust your teammates and believe in yourselves because you got this,” Krakowiak said.
OBSERVER Photo by Christian Storms
Fredonia’s Londyn Wilmot (8) and Lydia LaBarr meet Southwestern’s Bella Sirianni at the net.
After the final timeout Fredonia scored and then at 24-23 its top hitter rose to occasion for the biggest kill of the season. Londyn Wilmot soared in the middle and thundered down the final point to secure the championship.
“It’s just real special,” Krakowiak said about Wilmot’s final point. “The final point is always tense … what’s it going to be in the tight situations. We always tell the girls we make our own success and that was us making our own success. We’re not going to wait for the other team to make a mistake, we want to be the ones. I was really happy with the girls, they took care of the ball and we made our own success.”
Wilmot led Fredonia with 14 kills, and scored nine aces, nine digs and one block; Elizabeth Morris added another seven kills, two aces and 18 digs, Lydia LaBarr made six kills and 10 digs and Maddie Saunders orchestrated the offense with 27 assists and 11 digs.
Fredonia will now look to repeat what Southwestern did last year, and the first obstacle will be Depew in the Section VI Class B crossover game on Friday night.
“Southwestern fought very, very hard,” Krakowiak added. “I know last year they were in this same position and they didn’t give up. They played with heart, too, and they should be very proud of themselves, it was not an easy game. It was very well fought.”
While the Trojans were the defending champions they took a long path to get back to the finals as the 7-seed and did so while losing several key players from graduation.
Southwestern’s effort was led by Siri DuBois with 22 kills, Bella Sirianni made 23 assists, Kate Miller scored four aces, Payton Swartz made 18 digs and Elise Kartesz had another eight.
“It’s a tough loss,” Alexander stated. “We’ve been battling with them since the start and every single time we play them we tend to error. It’s 100% a mental game. Those first two sets we didn’t play our game.”