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Lady Gators sweep past Lady Commodores

By Mike Ciarochi 3 min read

PERRYOPOLIS – Defending Class A champion Geibel Catholic held serve and expects to enter this year’s WPIAL tournament top-seeded. The Gators swept Frazier, 25-13, 25-16 and 25-22, in the Section 6-A finale for both teams Thursday night. The win keeps Geibel Catholic undefeated at 14-0 overall and 12-0 in section games, while Frazier finished tied for second with Jefferson-Morgan at 9-3 in section games and 11-3 overall.

“I’m hoping we’re top-seeded,” Gators coach Rock Watkins said. “I hope we’re the team to beat, although I’m not as confident with this year’s team as I was with last year’s team. We had a lot of senior leadership last year.

“This year, we’re playing with a lot of freshmen and sophomores. They are playing better now than they were early in the season.”

Frazier coach Mandy Hartman was disappointed with the loss, but encouraged by how her team has progressed through the season.

“We obviously struggled with blocking, defense and serve receive,” Hartman said. “We were playing catch-up the whole time.

“But this is a feisty group of girls. Even though we were down the whole match, our girls kept playing hard the whole way.”

Hartman had plenty of kind words for the defending champs, even noting “I wish I could play them every night.”

“They are obviously fined-tuned at this point, so a match like this can only help us in the playoffs.”

Pairings are due out today and, while the Gators are all but assured of the top seed, Frazier helped itself by winning at Jefferson-Morgan Monday. The Lady Commodores therefore should be seeded higher than the Lady Rockets.

“There are a couple of keys that will hold true in the playoffs,” Watkins said. “If our big girls – Samantha Hawk, Caroline Renne and Natalie Hozak – serve consistently we can win. If not, we will struggle.”

Hawk was particularly impressive against Frazier. Her 18 service points led both teams and included runs of seven and six in the first game alone.

“The key tonight, though, was that Frazier sent a couple of free balls over to us and that plays right into our strength,” Watkins said. “I don’t think they served us as tough as we’ll see in the playoffs. You cannot serve to Natalie and expect to beat us and she’s in all of our serve rotations.

“If you can keep it away from here, it’s better than serving it to her.”

Not surprisingly, Hozak led the Gators with 17 digs and 20 kills. Hawk added 17 kills and Chelsey Kreinbrook compiled 36 assists.

Sara Zebley paced Frazier with 17 digs, Megan Leary had seven kills and Rachel Hudik 16 assists.

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