SOUTH DEERFIELD — For the first time since Sept. 22, 2021, the Frontier girls volleyball team lost consecutive matches. The Redhawks fell in five sets to Westfield on Monday before turning around and dropping their home opener against Longmeadow on Tuesday night.

Set scores were 25-17, 18-25, 15-25, 16-25.

While Frontier may not have brought its ‘A’ game, the reason the Redhawks lost had more to do with the terrific play of the Lancers than anything else. Frontier is still trying to adjust to losing five of its seven starters from a year ago.

“I think we’re a team that’s kind of in the rebuild, readjust, reload mode right now,” Redhawks head coach Sean MacDonald said. “We really struggled with a lot of things [Monday] night, and I liked the response tonight against, in my opinion, a better team with no disrespect to Westfield. Longmeadow had a lot of people coming back. We still have people adjusting to new positions, adjusting to playing, adjusting to having the pressure of having to play instead of having to cheer.”

The first set showcased the version of Frontier that MacDonald hopes to consistently see by the end of the year. The Redhawks trailed briefly, 15-13, midway through the set, but quickly turned things around when senior captain Gabrielle Adams stepped behind the line to serve.

Adams ignited an 11-0 Frontier run, and struck for four of her five aces on the night during that stretch to propel the Redhawks to a 25-17 first set victory.

Although Adams’ serve seemed unstoppable, MacDonald looked at it from a different perspective.

“We got all those points in one rotation with Gabby serving,” MacDonald said. “That could’ve easily gone the other way. In the next set, Gabby misses her first serve, and then another set she was serving, we let an easy ball drop. To me, yeah that may only be one point, but when a team goes back and serves five more points because you let them off the hook, it adds up. It’s more than one point.”

MacDonald was well aware that getting this year’s team on the same page with one another would take time. And in his opinion, he believes his team is on pace with where he thought they would be after six matches.

There was a little disorganization and a lack of communication from Frontier on Tuesday, as several times players were unsure whether or not they should go after a ball. By the time the Redhawks match up with Longmeadow next month, those mistakes should be ironed out – according to MacDonald.

“To get six pieces to work together as a system takes a lot of time,” he said. “It takes more time than you think. Honestly, we are where I thought we’d be. Right now, it’s just too much hesitation and everybody thinks someone else is gonna get it. I think that comes with time. There were some mistakes you saw today that we aren’t gonna see as much in November. I’m looking forward to playing [Longmeadow] again in a few weeks.”

The back-to-back losses may be tough for the Redhawks to cope with in the moment, but it’s all part of the maturation process as players.

“I thought we’d have a match like [Monday] night, where we lose a match that I thought we could win,” MacDonald said. “And we knew this was gonna be tough, Longmeadow is one of the top teams in western Mass. right now, and they’re a little ahead of us. We just need to keep moving in the right direction.”

The Redhawks’ mistakes aren’t anything that can’t be fixed with time and practice. MacDonald knows his players recognize that they can be better.

“I got a team of girls that are all on the honor roll, so if they miss three serves in a row, they don’t need me to tell them that that’s not the desired result,” MacDonald said. “I feel OK with where we are. I like my team, I like them as people, and they’re working hard to get better every day.”

Caroline Deane led the way with 18 kills and an ace for Frontier. Gabby Adams tallied five kills and five aces, Olivia Machon finished with five aces and one kill while Allie Pierce distributed 21 assists in the loss. 

Frontier (4-2) looks to avoid three straight defeats when it travels to Minnechaug on Thursday evening for a 5:30 p.m. match with the Falcons.