CHICOPEE – Sean MacDonald’s illustrious career coaching the Frontier girls volleyball team just added another achievement to an ever-expanding list of them, and the already jam-packed trophy case outside Goodnow Gymnasium in South Deerfield will have to make room for yet another Western Mass. championship trophy.

The Redhawks used a game-high 26 kills from senior captain Caroline Deane to defeat Baystate Academy 3-1 (25-18, 24-26, 25-13, 25-22) in the Western Mass. Class B title match on Saturday afternoon at Chicopee Comp High School.

Frontier has now won 18 consecutive sectional championships (excluding the COVID-canceled 2020 season).

MacDonald is stepping down as coach after 21 seasons with the program once this year is over. The team made sure he would have his storybook ending in a match that he’s practically lived in since taking over in 2003.

“We all came into this game doing it for us, but also doing it for him,” Frontier senior captain Caroline Deane said of MacDonald. “It’s an amazing legacy that he’s leaving, and I think he’s built this program up where we sometimes make the games leading up to this look easy. I’m sure he’s very happy he won this last won going out on top.”

Frontier handled Baystate with ease in the first set, and rode the momentum into the second to build a 24-21 lead late. That’s when the mistakes piled up. The Redhawks suffered from self-inflicted wounds and gave up the next five points to lose the set 26-24. MacDonald’s memo was simple – don’t give the opponent an easy way out.

Well, in the third set, Frontier responded with a 25-13 drubbing of the Bulls to regain control in the match.

“We made [five] errors at the end of set two to put them back with a chance to win,” MacDonald said. “We could’ve had a two-set lead. It’s been the story of the year. When we make a lot of errors, we make life hard, or we don’t win. When we clean it up, we’re tough to beat. To me it’s a math problem. If I give you 15 points on errors, you only have to score 10. A lot of teams can score 10, especially in the later rounds of playoffs.”

The fourth and final set was finished off with a Deane kill to send the Frontier faithful into a frenzy. Deane (three aces), Gabby Adams (14 kills), Olivia Machon (four aces) and Emilie Candelaria (six kills, four aces) led the Redhawks offense, which was facilitated by a whopping 47 assists from setter Allie Pierce. Adams (17 digs), Deane (12 digs), and Ariana Miller (11 digs) held down the defense.

Deane, Adams, and Pierce have been the big three all season, but Candelaria emerged as an offensive weapon down the stretch – including on Saturday.

“She’s been working really hard over the last couple years,” MacDonald said. “She came in when Olivia Machon sprained her ankle, so we put Emilie in Olivia’s spot and she did really well. Usually I need to see it in practice before I see it in a game, but she did a great job and now we move things around with her, Kate (DeMaio), and Olivia. Her serve can be deadly.”

Five of the seven starters from 2022’s state championship team graduated, leaving this year’s squad with holes to fill. Throughout the entire off-season, Frontier heard all about how they would have to rebuild and that it would be the group to potentially break the streak.

The Redhawks went through some growing pains – naturally – early on, but have been lights out since. Frontier has won nine straight match and is playing its best volleyball of the season right now.

“Graduating all those seniors, we all had this complex about being the underdogs and having a rebuilding year,” Deane said. “We talked yesterday about rewriting the story of this team. We may not have a perfect record this year, but we’re really close and we love each other. And when it looks good, it looks amazing. Coming into today, we wanted to make a name for this team and not go out as the team that struggled without [last year’s] seniors.”

Although the uniforms said Baystate Academy across the front, the Redhawks knew who they were really playing. Paulo Freire closed as a school last year, forcing it to combine with Baystate. Frontier and Paulo Freire played in the state final in 2021 (3-1 loss) and again in the state semifinals in 2022 (3-2 win). A lot of those Panthers players were suited up in red and white for the Bulls on Saturday, including head coach Hector Rivera.

The win felt extra sweet for the Redhawks.

“It felt very, very good,” Deane said. “I think we have this fear of Paulo because of that state final in 2021. We came into last year thinking our whole goal was pretty much to beat Paulo, which we did. And obviously this year is a little different, but we still knew they’re really good and scrappy. Shout out to them, they were amazing to play. But I think our mindset changed like, they’re probably scared of us, so we need to use that to our advantage.” 

Frontier is currently ranked No. 2 in Division 4 behind only Ipswich, and is likely to host the first several rounds of the state tournament depending on how far the Redhawks go. They won the whole thing in Division 5 last season, and hope to repeat the same success after moving up.

“It’s one game at a time, really,” MacDonald said. “We’re in a new division, all new teams in the state tournament. We’ve won state championships in Division 3 and Division 5, hopefully we can do Division 4 and see if we can collect the set.”