'Just a big family': Five seniors power Loudonville over Fredericktown in volleyball
LOUDONVILLE — Ari Mitchell played one of her best-ever all-around games and her four senior teammates equally played superbly as the Loudonville High School volleyball team wrapped up the regular season with a 3-0 shutout of nonconference opponent Fredericktown on Senior Night Thursday in “The Cage.”
Mitchell appeared to have some extra pep in her step in leading Loudonville (19-3) over Fredericktown (16-6).
“This was a game we’ve been waiting for since last year when they beat us, and it was Senior Night, the crowd came out and I think that really pumped me up, and I just wanted to make everyone proud and let them know we’re a good team and we work together,” said Mitchell, an outside hitter who recorded 13 kills (two aces) to lead all players. “They (seniors) have been my best friends forever — we’re just a big family, us five. We’ve played together forever and we have really good chemistry.”
Avenging a loss to Fredericktown last season was on the minds of all of the Redbirds.
“They were talking in the locker room, they wanted revenge. That’s how they said it. Payton Vansickle — she’s a little firecracker — she said we want revenge because it was their Senior Night last year there so they wanted to win tonight for our seniors,” said Loudonville coach Jackie Arnold. “And it’s kind of funny because Ari Mitchell, she’s so calm and collected. But something set her off, and she just started pounding like five in a row. We need that Ari Mitchell when we play Triway (potentially in the tournament).”
Loudonville won the first two sets, which were played competitively by both teams, by identical 25-19 scores.
Behind the strong serving of Vansickle (35 assists, two aces), Loudonville jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the third set and rolled to a decisive 25-13 triumph.
“We’ve played a lot of tough nonconference matchups, and I’ve got a really young team this year with only three returners on varsity, so everybody else is fresh to the varsity level, and I think that really showed up for us tonight,” Fredericktown coach Cassandra Vaughn said. ”We stopped communicating, and just let little things turn into big things.”
Junior Jillian Bouton led the Freddies with eight kills and five points, freshman Ella Bouton had five kills, and junior Taylor Bryant came up with 20 digs and five points.
Seniors Kenzie Cutlip (nine kills, two blocks)), Katie Seboe (seven kills, kills aces, two blocks), Goldie Layton (19 digs, 13 serve-receptions), Maddie Kline (three kills, two blocks), and junior Maddy Denslow (five kills) all played extremely well, as did junior Olyvia Fenton (two aces) who served well and played rigorously on defense.
“I think we gained confidence as we went on. We’ve been working on keeping our energy up and confidence up, and we were just all pumped up and playing for each other,” Seboe said. “It’s nice to end our season with a win and play together.”
“I definitely think our energy was a big deal. I also think that we work so hard in practice because after losing to Triway, a game we really wanted, so it really hurt, and that made us want to work that much harder and beat someone,” Layton said. “Especially Fredericktown because they beat us in three last year, so we already had that vengeance with them to come back.”
“I think we did really well executing everything we worked on in practice, and overall I think we played really well,” Cutlip said. “We’ve built a really good relationship with everyone, we do stuff together, we do team bonding, we’re friends outside of the sport, too. The only difference this year from last is I think we got along throughout the entire season and never had a bad spot with our teammates.”
“This senior group, we’re all best friends, I love every single one of them,” Kline beamed. “Each and every one of them I love with my whole heart. And we are ready for the tournament.”
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Five seniors lead Loudonville to volleyball win over Fredericktown
