The eight girls were at least a curiosity.
When the Boone County contingent showed up for AAU basketball tournaments some six years ago, their opponents couldn’t believe they had anything to do with a Catholic school in Burlington.
No, neither the squads who drew their rosters from all over Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana – nor their parents – could believe seven of the eight members of Triple Threat were part of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish or attended the school and/or church on Veterans Way.
“We were teased about it,” Triple Threat coach Tammy Freihofer said. “We … would giggle because we just all go to the same church.”
Then Triple Threat crushed the other teams.
“They, I think, found it hard to believe we had that much talent on one team, and we all met and played because we went to the same church,” Tammy Freihofer said.
The octet are now juniors and seniors in high school or have graduated. You could call them the Exceptional Eight because seven have either accepted NCAA Division I scholarships or are considering their options.
Three seniors were Ninth Region Players of the Year in their respective sports this season: Notre Dame’s Sydney Nolan, who’s headed for North Carolina for volleyball; St. Henry’s Mandy Schlueter who’ll play soccer at Ohio State; and Cooper’s Whitney Lind, who has signed to play basketball at Lehigh University.
Notre Dame senior Noelle Hubert signed with Northern Kentucky University for basketball, and fellow Panda Abby Unkraut, who missed her senior soccer season with a torn ACL, is going to Georgia.
One of Freihofer’s two daughters, Cooper junior Liz, has received a basketball offer from Eastern Kentucky University. Notre Dame alumna Kennedy Clark (who did not attend IHM and was not a parishioner) is a freshman soccer player at Xavier University.
The eighth, Cooper senior basketball player Kay Freihofer, won’t play collegiate sports. Instead, she plans to attend the University of Kentucky, major in biology and eventually become a Physician Assistant in Orthopedics.
Nolan, an outside hitter, helped lead Notre Dame to the 2022 state title, the Pandas’ second in three seasons; she had a team-high 487 kills.
“I felt like I had more fun and felt more connected with the game of volleyball than basketball, but I really did enjoy my time in basketball,” Nolan said.
Schlueter scored 35 goals in her only high school soccer season; she played on elite travel teams the rest of her career. She said moving from St. Henry (enrollment 454 in grades 9-12) to 66,444-student Ohio State won’t be a culture shock.
“I don’t know,” Schlueter said. “It just excites me more than it makes me nervous.”
The 6-foot-2 Lind and the Freihofers led the Jaguars to their second consecutive Ninth Region titles. Lind averaged 16.1 points and 6.9 rebounds a game, Liz Freihofer was next with 10.3 points, and Kay chipped in another 7.0.
Lind’s 2,267 points placed her second in career scoring behind 2018 graduate Lexi Held’s 2,430.
While Lind called Iowa star Caitlin Clark “amazing,” and “fun to watch” her favorite player is WNBA star Elena Delle Donne.
“I love the way she plays the game,” Lind said.
Hubert averaged 15.9 points a game last year. Her 3.6 3-pointers per game average was second in the state to Frederick Douglass’ Niah Rhodes’ 3.7.
NKU offered Kay Freihofer a basketball scholarship. She’s had an “extremely long” history of injuries and the accompanying surgeries and rehab stints, and the potential of four years in college was a factor in her decision. (She was a Governor’s Scholar last summer.)
“I’ve been having shoulder issues this past season; it dislocated upwards of 10 times,” she said. “My parents took me to get an MRI before I committed to play another four years in college; unfortunately, I have a torn labrum in my shoulder.”
Will Kay Freihofer miss basketball? Well, yes.
“I feel like, since I’ve played since I was 5 years old, it’s all I know in the wintertime,” she said. “I’m definitely going to have to get involved in some intramural leagues down at UK.”
One final thing seems certain: the Triple Threat and high school sports stories will be retold, again and again and again.
“I think all of us are pretty good communicators with one another still, even after attending different high schools,” Nolan said. “So I would hope that we would keep in touch like we do now and stay close.”