FREDERICKTOWN — Fredericktown’s seven seniors trust each other.
And they don’t care who makes the play, as long as someone makes it.
Those characteristics have been on display all season, as the Freddies breezed through Knox-Morrow Athletic Conference play, finishing 12-0 and claiming their second league title in three years. And they were on display once again Saturday night, in the final moments of a contentious, back-and-forth Division III sectional title game against North Union.
Fredericktown, seeded ninth in the Central District, clung to a 39-38 with 4:30 left against the 19th-seeded Wildcats. The Freddies’ leading scorers, seniors Kaid Carpenter and Brady Lester, were both sidelined. Carpenter had just picked up his fourth foul, and Lester was battling calf cramps, having played nearly the entire game to that point.
Fredericktown needed its role players to step up and get the job done. And the group on the floor – including four seniors and a junior, shooting guard Trevor Bellman – did just that.
They worked the ball around the perimeter patiently, hunting for a quality look as time ticked off the clock. Then, they found one. Senior Luke Bean, the team’s perimeter marksman, relocated on the wing after throwing the ball into the post. Senior Xavier Mullins found him with a pin-point chest pass.
And the rest was history. Bang.
The home crowd erupted as the ball fell through the net. The Freddies led 42-38 with 3:08 remaining. But this group wasn’t done yet.
After a free-throw from North Union sophomore Tyler Krebehenne narrowed the margin to 3, and Lester subbed back in, Fredericktown did more of the same.
The Freddies swung it around the perimeter, disciplined and sharp, until Teegan Ruhl saw an opening. The senior drove to the basket, but instead of taking a contested shot, he kicked it back out to Bean, who was wide open once again after relocating on the wing.
The senior caught it and let it fly, without hesitation. And the end result felt familiar.
Bang.
What began as an eruption had turned into an ear-splitting thunderclap. Bean threw up three fingers as he trotted back on defense, and the party was on in Fredericktown.
The Freddies now led by 6 with 2:15 remaining. They’d hold on to defeat North Union, 51-44, to claim their second sectional title in three seasons.
“It’s just a credit to the guys and how much trust they really have in each other,” Fredericktown head coach Derek Dibling said. “I really think that these guys have been playing together long enough now that they trust each other. And in big moments, I think it shows.”
Fredericktown will face top-seeded Columbus Africentric in the district semifinals on Monday at 7 p.m. at Olentangy Berlin High School. The Nubians, led by Xavier commit Dailyn Swain, were ranked seventh in the state in the final AP poll. They are coming off a state semifinal appearance last season.
The Freddies are Knox County’s last boys basketball team left playing. Centerburg, seeded 11th in the same district, fell to 3-seed Columbus Academy on the road in a sectional final Saturday night, 45-31. Danville, seeded sixth in the Division IV Central District, lost at home to 15-seed Wellington School, 82-58, in a sectional final Saturday night as well.
Fredericktown nearly suffered a similar fate against North Union. The Wildcats, a tough bunch that brought a crowd, pushed the Freddies on their home court.
North Union led 14-10 after one quarter and battled back in the second, erasing a 4-point deficit late through stingy defense and aggressive offense. Fredericktown led 24-22 at halftime.
Carpenter, who picked up his second foul late in the first quarter and sat the entire second, came back in the third quarter and wreaked havoc. The senior forward had his hands on seemingly every possession, dominating the paint with his trademark physicality.
He converted a post lay-in through traffic to give Fredericktown a 28-27 lead with 5:18 left in the quarter. Then, on the next possession, he found Ruhl for a high-low lay-in, stretching the lead to 3.
After a block on the other end, Carpenter did more damage offensively, laying the ball in off a high-low feed from Lester. And he capped off the 8-0 run with two free-throws, which he shot after being fouled on an offensive rebound through traffic.
Fredericktown led 34-27 with 2:42 left in the period.
But North Union didn’t give in. The Wildcats called a timeout, regrouped, and went right back after the Freddies.
Junior Nolan Draper banged in a three from the wing to make it 34-30. Then, moments later, sophomore Miles Hall converted an and-one transition lay-in (plus the free-throw) to narrow the deficit to 1.
Back-to-back cutting lay-ins from senior Richie Bolander gave the Wildcats a 37-35 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Lester, the Freddies’ steadying force throughout a night of turbulence, made his mark early in the final period. He rattled home a post fade-away to tie the game at 37, then converted a transition lay-in (off a steal and pitch-ahead from Bellman) to give Fredericktown a 2-point lead with 5:12 remaining.
That’s when the cramps set in, Carpenter picked up his fourth foul, and Bean took over. His back-to-back threes gave the Freddies a 45-39 lead with 2:15 left, all but putting the game on ice.
“He’s just such a competitor,” Dibling said of Bean, the team’s sixth man. “I think he knows what he brings to the table, and he’s gotten really, really good at it. He’s got a very specific skill set and he knows it, the guys know it, and they do a good job of getting him the ball when he needs the ball. …
“He’s a great spacer for us because he takes so much pressure off some of the guys inside. He’s an integral part of what we try to do.”
Bean, no stranger to making tough shots in big moments, said the fourth-quarter triples felt natural Saturday night.
“Those were our two best scorers (Carpenter and Lester) that we didn’t have in at the moment,” Bean said. “And I knew they weren’t guarding the three-point line that great this game, and I was thinking they’d be scared about the post, and if I got the kick-out, I could knock it down. And I was effective with that.”
The crowd helped, Bean added. Even the visitors’ side.
“We just know how important these games are,” Bean said. “And with the crowd – both sides were getting into it, there was a lot of chirping happening – it was just really fun to play in because every time my shot went in, I could hear the crowd roar.”
North Union made things interesting in the game’s final moments, cutting the lead to 47-43 with 45 seconds left after forcing a Fredericktown turnover. But free-throws from Ruhl and Bean put the final nails in the coffin.
“We got great bench-play this game from (Mullins) and (senior Dom Thompson) and (Bean). Guys played out-of-position at times,” Dibling said.
“But again, I think it’s their resiliency, their ability to kind of ride out the highs and the lows. Tournament time is not easy. The more resilient team, a lot of times, is the team that ends up coming out on top. So credit to our guys for riding the highs and lows out.”
Lester led Fredericktown in scoring Saturday with a game-high 15 points. Bean followed with 14, including four triples. Carpenter added 11 and Ruhl contributed 8 for the home team.
The Wildcats were led by Bolander, who scored a team-high 12 points. Junior Max Parish tallied 10 and Hall had 9 for the visitors.
The Freddies, who beat 17th-seeded Liberty Union, 54-42, in the sectional semifinals Wednesday, cut down the nets in front of their home crowd Saturday night. It marked the final home game for the team’s seven seniors, as every game from here on out will be played at neutral sites.
Bean said it felt like the right way to go out.
“We’re just taking (every game) as our last game. We’ve gotta play like a team, play like we have these past eight years together,” the senior said. “We just like being out here. We like playing in front of this big Fredericktown crowd and just doing what (it takes) to win.”
Dibling watched late Saturday as his players posed for pictures, pieces of the net dangling from their mouths. He couldn’t help but be proud of all they’d accomplished.
“Winning games in the tournament is hard. … There’s no cupcakes,” Dibling said. “We had a specific goal in mind of trying to get a couple wins. We didn’t necessarily look at that third line and who was there. It was, you know, ‘Where can we place ourselves to try to get two wins?’ And again, we were able to come out and get it done. So I’m proud of our guys.”
The turnaround heading into the district tournament will be quick for Fredericktown – and the task will be tall. The Freddies will have 48 hours to prepare for one of the top teams in the state.
But Dibling said his team is “locked in” at the moment, with two tournament wins under its belt. He feels Fredericktown will be prepared to compete Monday night.
“(We’ll have a) short walk-through tomorrow, and then you get ready for Monday. You don’t have a ton of time to think about it; with the way the brackets are aligned, we’ve got a day. …” Dibling said. “We’ll prepare probably all night and get ready tomorrow, have a little walk-through mid-day and then we’ll be ready to go out there and play.”
