IBERIA – The things Fredericktown did well Friday night don’t end up on highlight reels.
Rebounding in traffic: boxing out, grabbing the ball with two hands and chinning it. Taking quality shots: moving the ball around, cutting hard and passing sharp, and working until an open look presents itself. Playing composed and connected: maintaining a high level of focus and composure in a hostile road environment, and doing so as a team.
These things don’t make SportsCenter. They don’t end up on TikTok or Instagram or Twitter.
They do win championships.
And that’s exactly what Fredericktown did.
The Freddies clinched the Knox-Morrow Athletic Conference title outright Friday with a gritty, fundamentally focused 52-44 win at Northmor. It marked the program’s second KMAC title in three years, as Fredericktown split it with Centerburg in 2020-2021.
“It’s just a credit to our guys, the coaches, the community – I mean, a lot goes into (it), more than just me and the guys,” Fredericktown head coach Derek Dibling said. “From top to bottom, we get a lot of support from the community, the school, the administration, the youth (program). It’s just so many pieces.
“But it’s a credit to the program. It’s a credit to the program and those guys. Obviously, the guys have to go out and get the job done and represent the community. And they did great. They did a great job today.”
Just one of the team’s eight seniors – forward Kaid Carpenter – played varsity during the 2020-21 championship season (that team also had an eight-man senior class). But Dibling said this group learned immensely from those two years ahead of them.
They learned what it took to win a conference championship, Dibling said. And two years later, they did it themselves.
“A lot of the guys on this team were mentored by some of those (2021 seniors), and they looked up to those guys,” Dibling said. “And so a lot of it comes from (the coaching staff), but a lot of that is inherently learned from the guys that came before them and the standard that they’ve set, in the locker room and just all over.”
1. Fredericktown (11-0)**
2. Centerburg (9-2)
3. Northmor (8-4)
4. Mount Gilead (6-5)
5. Cardington (2-8)
6. Danville (2-9)
7. East Knox (1-9)
**Clinched the conference title outright
THE GAME: Northmor jumped out to an early lead, but Fredericktown came right back behind the playmaking abilities of Carpenter.
The senior converted back-to-back transition lay-ins to give the Freddies their first lead of the night. He then found fellow senior Teegan Ruhl on the break for another bucket, making it 12-7 with 1:58 left in the first quarter.
Fredericktown took a 14-12 lead into the second.
Northmor got the lead back on a wing three-pointer from junior Caleb Schnuerer, which made it 19-18 midway through the period. But the Freddies held the Golden Knights to just 1 point the rest of the half – on a free-throw from junior Isaac Black – and senior Luke Bean canned a pull-up three as time expired to give the visitors a 23-20 lead heading into the locker room.
Fredericktown gained separation in the third quarter. Carpenter started the stanza with 7 straight points – a free-throw, a pull-up three and an and-one transition lay-in (plus the foul shot) – to give the Freddies a 30-26 advantage.
Six straight points from Northmor sophomore Jaxson Wenger pulled the Golden Knights within 3 at the 1:58 mark, but Fredericktown closed the quarter on a 4-2 run, as seniors Ben Mast and Brady Lester both converted shots near the basket to give the visitors a 37-32 lead going into the fourth.
Northmor made things interesting in the game’s final stanza. Back-to-back baseline lay-ins cut the deficit to 1. Then, moments later, a back-door lay-in from Schnuerer tied the game at 38 with 5:20 left.
The Golden Knights took a 41-40 lead on two Schnuerer free-throws with 3:34 remaining. But Fredericktown did not fold.
After working the ball around the perimeter, Ruhl drove to the paint, collapsing the defense. He then kicked it out to Mast, the team’s pass-first point guard and team leader, and the senior did the rest.
Mast banged the wing three-pointer, sending the road crowd into a frenzy and giving the Freddies a 43-41 lead with less than three minutes to go.
It was the spark Fredericktown needed, after a shaky stretch in the fourth quarter of a close road game. And Mast delivered the goods without hesitation.
“I gotta give a lot of credit to (Mast),” Northmor head coach Blade Tackett said, “because honestly, we were leaving him all night. We were leaving him all night. We’d leave him to go double Carpenter. We left him to go double Lester. … And when we’re up 1 with less three minutes left, whatever it was, and they find him on a long kick-out and he takes his shot, that’s the shot exactly that we wanted.
“It’s nothing against him, but that’s exactly what we wanted defensively. And so I gotta tip my hat to him because he knocked it down.”
Fredericktown held Northmor to just 3 points in the game’s final three-and-a-half minutes, forcing turnovers and tough shots and collecting contested rebounds.
Wenger knocked down a three with 1:28 left that made it 46-44, but the Freddies’ fundamentals won out, as they stayed strong with the ball, collected stops and shot 4-of-6 from the free-throw line to ice the game down the stretch.
Carpenter laid the ball in off the press-break as time expired, and the celebration was on. Fredericktown had done it once again.
“How do I feel? I feel great,” Lester said afterwards, a smile stretching across his face. “You know, this was our goal from the beginning of the season. And Northmor, hats off to them, they gave us everything they got. They made us play the best that we have, and it was a heck of a game.”
Lester said Fredericktown’s experience and chemistry made a difference down the stretch. The team is full of multi-sport athletes who have won big games together before.
“We’ve got our chemistry. We know everybody’s positions, we know where we’ve gotta be at the right time. And that’s exactly what we did,” Lester said. “We’re just comfortable with each other. And we know that everybody’s got the confidence to step up at the free-throw line and make big shots and get the win.”
Fredericktown clinched at least a share of the league title on Tuesday night, when it won 78-46 at Mount Gilead. The Freddies needed to win Friday, or have Centerburg lose on the road to Cardington, to clinch the conference outright.
Centerburg beat Cardington, 59-48. But that didn’t matter. The Freddies took care of business themselves.
And they did it by mastering the little things. Rebound, passing, shot selection. The team developed these winning habits every day at practice, Lester said, to the point where they are now muscle memory.
“They understand that little things win. Little things matter,” Dibling said. “We talk about (how) the habits every day in practice are the things that translate on the court. So if you’re dogging it in practice, you can’t just flip a switch.
“We encourage those guys every day to make good decisions (and) create good habits, so that when you are in crunch-time, the good habits that you’ve created come to the forefront – rather than, you know, you sink to the low level that maybe you haven’t trained for.”
Dibling said he was proud of the way his seniors led, and his team as a whole executed, down the stretch Friday. It wasn’t always pretty, Dibling said, but the Freddies got it done.
“We just kept emphasizing (that) possessions matter,” said Dibling, in his seventh season as Fredericktown’s head coach.
“It was a slower game than I think I anticipated. And being able to finish possessions defensively with a rebound, and making sure we just got good shots – I mean, it really (came) down to a couple possessions there, and we needed to value them, especially down the stretch when it mattered. And again, the seniors stepped up and did a good job taking care of the ball.”
Carpenter led Fredericktown with a game-high 16 points, including 10 in the second half. Lester poured in 9 for the visitors, while junior Trevor Bellman added 8. Ruhl had 7 and Mast had 6 in the team effort.
Wenger led Northmor in scoring with 14 points. Schnuerer tallied 12, while junior Grant Bentley and senior Max Lower both contributed 6.
LOOKING AHEAD: Northmor finished 8-4 in KMAC play. The Golden Knights will play five non-conference games, including a Tuesday night home matchup against Wynford, before entering tournament play.
Tackett said that despite the loss, he’s proud of how far his team has come. He believes Northmor is peaking at the right time, with the postseason just two weeks away.
“It’s one of those things where we had great looks, I thought, for the entire second half. I thought we executed beautifully. Our threes and shots didn’t go down. … We call (a timeout) and take the lead. They get an opportunity to do it and they knock it down,” Tackett reflected.
“So I give ’em the credit, and that’s what a championship team does. You know, they’re the KMAC champs. And so congrats to them and congrats to (Mast) for hitting a big shot in a big moment. But I’m proud of our team. We got better today and, you know, we’re close to playing our best basketball at the right time of the season. And that’s what’s important to me.”
Fredericktown, meanwhile, will look to finish KMAC play 12-0 with a home win over rival Centerburg next Friday night. The Freddies won the first matchup, 59-50, on the road Jan. 6.
What will it take to sweep the Trojans? Lester answered with one word: “Defense.”
“Defense will win us the game,” the senior said. “We can’t break down and let them get easy shots. And we’ve gotta rebound.”
Dibling agreed. It will take the same things it took to sweep Northmor, he said.
“It’s gonna take a complete game, a 32-minute game – a lot of the same things that go into beating a good team like Northmor. You have to value possessions. You’ve gotta be disciplined defensively, because they’ve got some guys that can really score the ball, just like Northmor,” Dibling said.
“Again, the little things – the little things will matter again.”
