Trib HSSN baseball team of the week for May 30, 2025

By: Don Rebel
Friday, May 30, 2025 | 9:13 PM

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Trib HSSN baseball team of the week: Freedom Bulldogs

Coach: Dan O’Leary (15th season)

Records: Freedom finished in third place in Section 2-2A, one game behind co-champions Neshannock and Shenango and one game ahead of New Brighton and Laurel. The Bulldogs have an overall record of 15-7 with five straight wins and victories in eight of their last nine games.

#Earned: The fact that a team from the deep and talented Section 2 won the WPIAL Class 2A championship is not a surprise. However, there were probably not a lot of folks that had No. 8 seed Freedom on their bingo cards to win it all. The Bulldogs began their surprising postseason run with a first-round rout of Apollo-Ridge, 12-2. Week 2 of the playoffs began with Freedom stunning section foe and 2A top seed Neshannock, 3-0, in the quarterfinals. There was no letdown three days later in the semifinals as the Bulldogs knocked off another Section 2 team in Laurel, 8-7. That victory advanced Freedom into the WPIAL 2A championship game for the second time in school history to battle No. 2 seed Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. The Bulldogs and Chargers relied on pitching and defense for five scoreless innings before Freedom plated the game’s only run as they blanked OLSH, 1-0, for the program’s first WPIAL baseball crown.

Standout performers: Earlier in the playoffs, Freedom had scored 23 runs in their three WPIAL postseason wins. Sophomore Mason O’Donnell went 2 for 2 with a home run and five RBIs in the first-round win over Apollo-Ridge. and junior Xavier Robbins was 3 for 4 with an RBI, and junior Colton Blank was 2 for 4 with three RBIs in the semifinal triumph over Laurel. In the title game, Freedom only managed four hits off OLSH pitchers Iseia Schulz and Sean Hudac, one hit each from O’Donnell, Blank, senior Tommy Ward and junior Boden Hilliard. It was the single by Hilliard in the top of the sixth inning that plated Nick Fessler, who had reached on an error, that produced the game’s only run. Hilliard was also the winning pitcher, throwing a complete-game with only two hits and two walks allowed while striking out five.

Last year: In 2023, Freedom struggled with six wins in 18 games and missed the Class 2A playoffs by six games in Section 2-2A. So the 2024 season was looked at as a big turnaround year. In mid-April, they nearly matched their win total from the previous spring with five straight section victories. The team swept Northgate in the final section series of the year to secure the fourth and final playoff spot in Section 2-2A ahead of New Brighton and South Side. Freedom was the No. 11 seed in the WPIAL playoffs, and its return to the postseason was brief as it fell to Chartiers-Houston, 7-4. Hilliard had two hits and drove home two runs for the Bulldogs. Despite the early loss in the postseason, the Bulldogs finished the season with an uptick in confidence following an improvement of five wins in an 11-9 campaign.

Remember when: In the 2016 WPIAL baseball season, Freedom finished in fifth place in Section 1-2A and missed the playoffs with an 8-11 overall record with no evidence of something extremely special about to happen in the spring of 2017. The Bulldogs were an improved team in ’17, but coach Dan O’Leary and his staff felt they could do better. Changes and tweaks were made, and the team soared to a second-place finish in the section, one game behind section champion Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Freedom was the No. 5 seed in the 2017 2A playoffs and defeated Bentworth in the first round, 5-4, edged Brentwood in the quarterfinals in eight innings, 4-2, and then upset top-seeded Serra Catholic in the semifinals, 3-2, to earn the program’s first trip to the WPIAL baseball championship game. It took a while before the clock struck midnight, 10 innings to be exact, as Freedom lost a heartbreaker to No. 2 California in the finals, 3-1.

2025 Trib HSSN Baseball Teams of the Week

Week 7 – Indiana Little Indians

Week 6 – Mars Fightin’ Planets

Week 5 – Neshannock Lancers

Week 4 – Ellwood City Wolverines

Week 3 – Bethel Park Black Hawks

Week 2 – Waynesburg Central Raiders

Week 1 – Belle Vernon Leopards

Tags: Freedom