Freeport girls volleyball players go from young fans to state champions

By: Michael Love
Monday, December 12, 2022 | 9:02 AM

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At a gathering at Freeport Middle School shortly after the Yellowjackets girls volleyball team captured the 2017 PIAA Class 2A championship, then-sixth graders Josie Russo and Grace Beach posed for photos holding the title trophy.

Five years later, the duo, now juniors on the Freeport team, again took photos together holding championship hardware.

This time, they weren’t just young fans of a group of players they looked up to. This was their trophy, the result of a season full of hard work and winning results they helped create on the court with their teammates.

Beach and Russo were a part of history as Freeport again brought home a Class 2A state championship. The Yellowjackets capped another strong postseason run, one that also included the program’s seventh WPIAL title, with a 3-0 victory over District 3 champion York Catholic in the championship match Nov. 19 at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg.

“Those photos are priceless, and every time I look at them, I say to myself, ‘This is how this program works,’ ” Freeport varsity coach Tom Phillips said.

“They truly capture that spirit where you have young players who are talented, excited and full of energy keep improving so when they arrive at the high school team, they are ready to carry on the tradition.”

Freeport players and teams since 2017 worked to get back to the PIAA championship game, but each one before this year had fallen short of that goal.

Last year’s team, in its second of two seasons in Class 3A, had won WPIAL gold and hoped to add a PIAA title. But Hampton denied the Yellowjackets in the state semifinals.

Phillips, when asked what he will remember fondly about this season, said it was the work done before the matches even began in early September as the players refocused and recommitted themselves to again winning a WPIAL title — and this time making it all the way to the ultimate game on the state’s biggest stage.

“I go all the way back to the summer,” Phillips said. “That’s where it starts. You could see the passion and determination from Day 1 to work hard for each other and for the team. It came down to them wanting to fulfill that dream. That is the goal of every team who begins a season, to have the type of season we had. Section champs, WPIAL champs and state champs. Not a lot of teams can say they went through a run like that. It was one that didn’t come without a whole lot of hard work. They followed through on some lofty goals.”

Freeport was tough to beat in the postseason. Even taking a game off them was a tall task. Only one team captured two games in a match.

District 6 champion Philipsburg-Osceola took Freeport to the limit, forcing a deciding Game 5 in their PIAA semifinal contest at Punxsutawney High School. But a Yellowjackets team effort in that deciding game overpowered the Mounties and junior Indiana Hoosiers commit Reese Hazelton.

The win over P-O propelled Freeport to the state title match against a York Catholic squad that had lost just one match all season, a 3-2 regular-season battle with fellow District 3 power Delone Catholic, the team the Yellowjackets defeated in the 2017 championship contest.

Freeport swept through York Catholic. Senior libero Ava Soilis served the final couple of points of the third game, including championship point. Russo, who celebrated her 17th birthday the day of the title match, finished off the victory by rising up for a block that was not returned by the Fighting Irish players.

“I was trying to serve to the opposite zone and serve it short, but it went a little deeper than I wanted it to,” Soilis said.

“I was a little frustrated with that, but I knew we still had a chance to play the ball for the point, and when I saw the block go up at the net, I just knew we had it. I could hear my dad, who was in the front row, scream, ‘It’s over!’ ”

Soilis said the time shortly after capturing the state title when the team members gathered at a restaurant before making the journey back home was special.

“We had some fun as a team, sharing some last moments together as a historic team for the season,” she said.

“When we got back home, it was pretty late, but we all appreciated the people who came out to greet us. Then on that Monday, we went to all of the schools in the district and walked around with our trophies. It was cool to be there and see a lot of the students, including young girls, who look up to us. You sometimes don’t realize the impact you have on your community when you do something like that. We’re grateful for all the people who have supported us.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

Tags: Freeport