Burrell girls get 1st victory of season, beat Freeport

By: Michael Love
Monday, January 3, 2022 | 9:47 PM

The Burrell girls basketball team was not able to taste the thrill of victory over its first eight games.

But as the Bucs turned the calendar to January, they were able to put one in the win column.

Senior Hope Clark scored a team-best 18 points, and junior Addy Landowski added 10 as Burrell topped Freeport, 56-51, on Monday at Burrell High School.

“This was a total team effort,” Clark said. “We wanted this so badly. We hadn’t beaten Freeport for a couple of years, so it was really nice to get this win and be able to get it on our home court. This gives us the confidence to go into other games.”

The victory for Burrell snapped an eight-game losing streak to Freeport dating to late in the 2016-17 regular season.

The Bucs, 1-8 overall, upped their record to 1-2 in Section 1-4A.

“Freeport is a quality team, and any time you get a chance to get a win against a team like that, you have to feel good,” said Burrell coach Shaun Reddick, who picked up the first win of his second stint with the Bucs.

“The girls have had some rough losses and have played some tough teams and quality opponents so far. When you don’t have your leader (senior Allison Fisher) and a number of people step up, everyone sees that and feeds off of that. We’ve been building and working hard to get a win like this. Now, we turn our focus to Thursday against Deer Lakes, another tough opponent in the section. The section is a grind, and we have to be prepared to go in and play a full game.”

Freeport, which played the game without leading scorer Melaina DeZort, a junior guard, fell to 2-3 overall and 1-1 in the section. The Yellowjackets already were without senior forward Leah Hartman, who is battling back from a knee injury suffered a couple of weeks ago.

Sophomore guard Ava Soilis picked up a lot of the slack for Freeport and finished with a career-best 26 points. She was 8 of 9 from the free-throw line, and she also connected on a pair of 3-pointers. Soilis had nine of her team’s 18 in the first quarter, and she added 15 in the second half.

Fellow sophomore Morgan Croney, a forward, added 10 points. She also hit a pair of 3-pointers.

“We jumped out to a nice early lead,” said Freeport coach Fred Soilis, whose team hopes to bounce back Thursday at home against Derry in section play.

“Our problem was that when they penetrated, we didn’t box out. We didn’t play good enough defense on it, and they out-rebounded us. That’s what killed us. For the most part, our offense was good. We might have taken a few ill-advised shots, but we just didn’t play defense the way we needed to.”

The early lead coach Soilis spoke of was an 18-7 advantage after one quarter of play. The Yellowjackets, who hit seven 3-pointers as a team and were 14 of 19 from the line for the game, led by 12 in the second quarter.

However, Burrell started a rally and scored 15 in the second quarter to Freeport’s seven to trim the deficit to 25-22 at the break.

Aided by a big third quarter which saw them outscore Freeport 19-11, the Bucs held as much as a 10-point lead before the Yellowjackets started to chip away.

Burrell led by four late when Landowski hit a step-out jumper from about 10 feet to give the home team a little more space. Landowski scored seven of her 10 points in the fourth. Clark also scored seven in the fourth.

“We tried to work the ball inside all night with the height advantage,” Reddick said. “We didn’t do a great job running the stall when we got up, and we took a few chances on defense we shouldn’t have taken. The game was starting to get tight. That was a big shot by Addy, and it re-energized us and gave us that cushion we needed.”

Freshman Anna Clark and junior Emily Wojtczak each contributed eight points for Burrell, which surpassed the 50-point mark for the first time this season.

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: Burrell, Freeport