Freeman soccer harvests more success

Freeman's girls' soccer team this year might be compared to the various crops that grow yearly in the field surrounding the community and school.

They routinely grow and some years have better yields than others.

That being said, consider what has sprouted in 2024 is certainly a bumper crop.

The Scotties have rolled through their Northeast 2B season with an undefeated record of 11-0 and 14-0 overall through games of Oct. 24.

They are the top-rated 1A team in the state according to the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association's rating percentage index or RPI. Max Preps concurs, ranking Freeman at No. 1.

"We've been real successful," head coach Dave Ellis said. "We've made state every single year that I've been there." This is Ellis's seventh season at Freeman.

Along with facing 2B schools like Northwest Christian, Davenport and the likes, the Scotties played a pair Greater Spokane League schools. They beat North Central 2-0 and Cheney, 6-2.

Dropping a classification meant traveling new roads, both literally and figuratively, and it was unclear what that might mean.

Before dropping down a classification in the past cycle, Freeman was the state's smallest 1A school. And they still made it to the state playoffs the previous six years.

"We were certainly competitive and still a very strong team in the 1A and so we weren't really quite sure what moving down a classification looked like," Ellis said.

What they found was "It's uneven, but there's also some good teams in there too."

Tops among the seven teams, and likely not a surprise, Northwest Christian. But Davenport also hovers on the upper rungs of the NE2B ladder.

NWC has provided Freeman some of its toughest tests in a pair of one-goal decisions. Freeman had to rally from a 3-0 deficit back in September to win 4-3 and most recently held on for. 2-1 victory in the Oct. 17 rematch.

Davenport played a similarly tough game against Freeman, losing 3-2 on Oct. 8 at home and the teams met to finish the regular season on Halloween in Davenport.

Ellis has coached some of the Davenport players at the club level and "They're phenomenal."

A top-ranking as a team is not the only lofty stat for Freeman. The Scotties also have the leading goal scorer across all classifications in Rylee Russell. She had 44 through an Oct. 24 game vs. Kettle Falls in which she collected four.

Ellis has coached the junior standout with the Eastern Washington Surf where she scored 31 times.

Russell has had her share of help from freshman Nora Gass with 15 and older sister, Avery, the team's leading assist machine. "Kind of a sister, sister, combo there," Ellis said.

And as good as Freeman is, one must wonder just how much better they might have been had last year's leading scorer, Aubrey Gregory not been injured for the beginning the season. Gregory returned Oct. 15?

"I think we're going to get even better here with her," Ellis said.