For a small county, Chautauqua has had more than its share of championship-winning teams and athletes over the years.

Add the 2024-25 and 2025-26 Frewsburg girls basketball team to that list.

Led by Jadyn Trocki and coach Sierra Beaver, the Lady Bears have entered rarified air by winning back-to-back championships after losing three starters from the 2024-25 team to graduation. Frewsburg became the first Section VI girls program to win back-to-back titles since Pine Valley won three straight from 2003 to 2005. The Bears are also the sixth Class C program to go back to back and first since Millbrook in 2022 and 2023.

“It’s something that you hope and dream,” Beaver said, “but you don’t really expect it to happen.”

Not all teams have the pieces to make championship runs. But all athletes take something away from their time in high school athletics – camaraderie with teammates, lessons about perseverance when things get difficult, learning how to build relationships and the value of setting goals and doing what’s necessary to achieve them. Those lessons are universal. For the athletes whose teams’ seasons ended over the past few weeks, look back fondly on what you accomplished whether your team struggled or advanced deep into the playoffs. The same is true, by the way, of the hundreds of area student actors and musicians who have taken to the stage in recent weeks to perform in musical productions on stages throughout the region. The lessons we extolled about sports are just as true when it comes to the stage or the concert bands that perform throughout the year. It takes guts hundreds of hours of hard work to put yourself in position to shine on the field or the stage.

And a hearty congratulations to the Frewsburg girls basketball team. It’s been a heck of a run for both the players but also the rest of the community over the past two years.