In the last 5 years, Fredericktown’s Head Coach, Derik Dibling has won 4 out of the last 5 conference championships they have competed for, including the 3 peat they just encountered this year on Feb 7th against the Cardington Pirates.
With Cardington hosting the game and both teams records in the conference being (12-1), everyone new it was going to be a great game. The stands were packed and there was barley any room to sit.
At the start of the first quarter freddies held a steady lead by hitting 3 threes and 8 paint points by Blake Sipes and Gavin Toombs to put them up 19-12. Then when the second quarter came around, Freddies stayed on track scoring another 19 points hitting deep threes and scoring in transition, putting the freddies up 38-36 at halftime.
At the beginning of the third quarter, Cardington-Lincoln came out hot cutting the lead right in half, making the game suspenseful. But after some regrouping from Coach Dibling, Fredddies took it slow hitting bucket after bucket to keep the lead going into the 4th up 59-46.
With the conference championship on the line, Cardington was due for a come back. The pirates switched their game plan up and started full court pressing the Freddies. This helped Cardington score a lot more points off turnovers to put them in the game with just a few minutes left. Fredericktown got out scored in the fourth quarter 25-18, but wasn’t enough after one of the Freddies players hit two clutch free throws to put them up 6 points with 6 seconds left, making Fredericktown KMAC Champs for the third year in a row, with a score of 77-71.
