Wednesday, April 6th, 2022
New Knoxville's Gabel, Fledderjohann select colleges
By Tom Haines
Photo by Tom Haines/The Daily Standard
New Knoxville's Ellie Gabel, center, signs a letter of intent on Tuesday to play girls basketball at Tiffin University. Seated with Ellie are parents Matt and Jill Gabel, and standing are Rangers coach Tim Hegemier and siblings Claire and John Gabel.
NEW KNOXVILLE - Ellie Gabel and Haley Fledderjohann, two of the stars of New Knoxville's historic volleyball and girls basketball runs, signed national letters of intent on Tuesday.
Gabel, the Midwest Athletic Conference girls basketball Co-Player of the Year and Daily Standard Dream Team Player of the Year, signed with Division II Tiffin University after considering Bluffton and Malone.
"I got to practice with the team and really connected with them," Gabel said.
Photo by Tom Haines/The Daily Standard
New Knoxville's Haley Fledderjohann, center, signed a letter of intent on Tuesday to play volleyball at Clarion University. Seated with Haley are parents Kort and Jenny Fledderjohann, and standing are Rangers coach Meg Lageman and brother Evan Fledderjohann.
Fledderjohann, who earned second-team all-MAC honors in both volleyball and basketball, committed to play volleyball with Division II Clarion University over Bluffton and Heidelberg, among others.
"I got to sit in on practice and meet a lot of the team on my visit, so that was really nice," Fledderjohann said. "All the girls were super welcoming, and so were the coaches. I really liked the atmosphere they had there."
Gabel, who plans to major in education with a focus on special education, averaged 13.1 points, 3.6 assists and 3.6 steals per game and hit 54 threes as a senior. She scored her 1,000th point in the season finale against New Bremen before averaging 14.1 points per game in the tournament.
She joins a Dragons team that went 13-15 and 10-12 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference in 2021-22 under coach Miriam Justinger, who resigned on March 31. Former New Knoxville standout and the school's all-time leading scorer Haley Horstman, who served one year as assistant coach under Justinger after playing collegiately at Findlay, was named the interim coach on Tuesday.
"I know I just have to come in there and work," Gabel said.
Fledderjohann started as an outside hitter for the Rangers and averaged 1.6 kills, 3.2 digs and 1.3 assists per set as a senior while notching 35 aces from the service line. In New Knoxville's Division IV state championship win over St. Henry, she recorded five kills, 11 digs and three blocks.
In basketball, Fledderjohann was the secondary ball-handler behind Gabel and shot 42.5% from the floor and 36% behind the arc, averaging seven points, 2.2 steals and 2.4 assists per game.
"I've always just liked volleyball a little bit more," she said with a laugh. "I guess that's about it."
Clarion went 22-10 and 11-5 in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference in 2021, winning the PSAC tournament before falling 25-19, 19-25, 20-25, 18-25 to Edinboro in the opener of the NCAA Division II tournament. The Golden Eagles are coached by Jennifer Herron, who will enter her 16th year in 2022 with a 337-155 career record.
On March 15, Clarion, Edinboro and California University of Pennsylvania received initial approval to merge into a single school, Pennsylvania Western University, on July 1, 2022.
Gabel and Fledderjohann both played for their parents at New Knoxville, with Matt Gabel and Kort Fledderjohann assistants on the girls basketball team and Jenny Fledderjohann an assistant for the volleyball team. Both girls were starters in volleyball for the Rangers, which recorded an undefeated regular season in 2020 and rebounded from a district tournament exit for an even stronger campaign in 2021, finishing 27-2 and winning its first state title.
In the winter, Gabel and Fledderjohann led the girls basketball team to a district title after losing in the finals three years in a row. New Knoxville then battled to the Division IV state championship game before losing to Waterford.
In the process, the Rangers reset the program record for wins and matched their best-ever postseason finish.
"I would just say it's been really fun to do it with my teammates," Fledderjohann said. "We really have been playing together for such a long time. I don't think a lot of teams have that, where it's the whole group from third grade all the way through senior year. It's also a pretty neat experience to have your mom on the bench with you."
