BUFFALO TWP — From the opening tip until the final buzzer, the Freeport boys basketball team is a relentless swarm.

The Yellowjackets’ aim is to beat you with a thousand stings until you yield, and they even have a name for it.

Swarm Warning.

They have bought into the buzzing style and so have the raucous fans that populate the fittingly named “Hive” — Freeport’s home gym.

“We’re going to press you — it’s a philosophy we live by,” said Freeport boys basketball coach Mike Beale. “We practice it every day. We’re going to wear you down eventually.”

The press has succeeded in whittling teams down. Freeport has been very much a second-half team this season.

“It’s definitely very fun,” said 6-2 junior guard Ben Beale, who is the coach’s son. “In the first and second quarters, we give up some stuff, but by the third and fourth quarters, teams are tired. We’ve been able to capitalize on teams in the second half.”

Freeport is 13-6 overall and in first place in the section at 8-1 despite replacing four starters lost to graduation from last year’s team.

Going into this season, there were a lot of questions — inside and outside of the program.

“Any time you lose four starters, there’s an unknown,” Mike Beale said.

What Coach Beale did know was his team was small, but agile.

The tallest player on the roster stands 6-foot-3. The regular lineup consists of players who are just 5-8, 5-9, 6-foot, 6-1 and 6-2.

What they lack in height, they have made up for in quickness and resolve. They are all talented shooters as well.

“On the flip side, on offense, we look to beat you down the court,” Mike Beale said. “We’re not going to be a team that will walk the ball up the court. We have one of the quickest teams I’ve had in all the years I’ve coached and they all have shooting ability. It’s a fun style of play as a player.”

It’s also a grueling style.

Conditioning was a challenge for the players as they prepared for the rigors of the season playing with the foot on the gas for 32 minutes.

Ben Beale said he and his teammates were prepared for it.

“The first two weeks were pretty rough,” Ben said. “We’ve been grinding so hard for so long and working out forever that we got used to it pretty quickly.”

Ben Beale has picked up right where big brother, Josh Beale, left off last season. Josh led the Yellowjackets in scoring as a senior in 2015-16 and now Ben is the leading scorer as a junior in 2016-17.

The scoring, though, has been balanced with 5-8 senior Kevin Lynch and 6-2 senior Evan Schaffhauser adding significant scoring punch as well.

Freeport also has a deep bench.

“I’m proud of the way I’m performing, but I’ll take a win over points per game any day,” Ben Beale said. “As long as we win, I don’t care how many points I score. As long as we make the playoffs.”

In a 61-58 win over Indiana Friday, a game in which Ben Beale hit the game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer and was carried off the court by the rabid Freeport fans, the Yellowjackets clinched a playoff spot.

It was surreal to Ben Beale.

“The support of our fans means the world to us,” he said. “I didn’t expect them to rush the court and carry me off. It was something I’ll never forget.”

Ben Beale admitted he didn’t think the Yellowjackets would be in this position this year.

But now that they are, he and his teammates are determined to make a long WPIAL and PIAA run.

“It definitely opens up some eyes,” he said. “It definitely shows you what you’re capable of.”