Freedom ousts Fairview girls from PIAA soccer playoffs

The Freedom girls soccer team had virtually no PIAA playoff experience heading into Tuesday's match against Fairview.

The Bulldogs looked like a veteran team in a big situation.

Freedom jumped on Fairview with two goals in the first 18 minutes and hung on against a second-half surge to upset the Tigers 3-2 in a PIAA Class A first-round match in front of 100 fans at Veterans Stadium.

"We gave too much away in the first half," Fairview coach Lyndsay Voriska said. "We couldn't get it all back in the second half. We changed things up and changed our formation. It definitely helped, but it wasn't enough."

Freedom (14-9-0), which reached its first WPIAL final last week and earned its first PIAA playoff win Tuesday, moves on to the quarterfinals Saturday.

The Bulldogs wasted no time during the afternoon match as Lyndsey Kauffman found Alexa Schwab for a goal in the fifth minute. Freedom extended its lead to 2-0 in the 18th minute when Kauffman found Taylor Petroff, who launched a deep shot to the top of the net.

"We told the girls we needed to score first with the wind behind us in the first half," Freedom coach Colin Williams said. "I was disappointed we gave one back in the first half, but we survived. We didn't play well last week in the WPIAL final and needed to get back to playing good soccer. We played tough and I think we deserved this one."

Freedom nearly scored again on a corner kick with 20 minutes left but it finally cashed in on one 3 minutes later. Petroff launched a corner to the middle of the box, which Kauffman headed in to make it 3-0 Bulldogs.

Fairview (19-2-0) responded immediately as Jordyn Sanner ripped a deep shot less than one minute later to get the Tigers on the board.

In the second half, Mya Fanazini set up Antonia Piazza, who scored from 30 yards out to cut the Freedom lead to 3-2.

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Freedom ousts Fairview girls from PIAA soccer playoffs

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