I remember the 2011 high school football season well.

That was the season Knoch — taking an undefeated regular season into the WPIAL playoffs — dealt with a community tragedy only days before the Knights’ first playoff game vs. West Allegheny.

Knoch senior cheerleader Alexis Summers lost her life in an automobile accident. Her funeral was on the same day as that playoff game.

The team attended the funeral. Fueled by emotion, the Knights went on to defeat East Allegheny and Thomas Jefferson handily in the first two rounds of postseason play, edged Franklin Regional on a late field goal in the semifinals and reached the WPIAL championship game at Heinz Field.

That Knoch team was good. Add emotional adrenalin to the mix and it sent the Knights on a long playoff run.

Here we are, a decade later, and another talented area football team is feeling a groundswell of emotion, albeit for a different reason and at a different time in the season.

But there are similarities.

Knoch played that 2011 postseason to honor the memory of a classmate and cheerleader killed in a tragic accident.

Freeport is playing the 2021 regular season with the joy of getting its quarterback back.

The Yellowjackets received the jarring news of Garrett King being diagnosed with testicular cancer days before the start of the 2020 season. Freeport finished 3-3 in that pandemic-shortened season, dropping its first playoff game.

King had to miss his junior season and had to watch his team play from a distance.

Now he’s healthy, cancer-free, and back behind center for his senior year.

And Freeport has high aspirations — just like that 2011 Knoch team did.

The Yellowjackets have a wealth of experience. A lot of this year’s seniors played as freshmen or sophomores, forced into the lineup by a rash of injuries to older teammates.

As Freeport coach John Gaillot says, “these kids took their lumps.”

Now they plan to deliver a few.

The Yellowjackets want to do more than qualify for the playoffs. They want to go on a playoff run similar to that 2011 Knoch team.

King compares the talent on this roster to the 2015 Freeport team that reached the WPIAL semifinals before losing to Aliquippa.

Freeport has not reached the district finals since the 1989 team that lost to Steel Valley in the championship game.

King is the leader of the 2021 Yellowjacket contingent, saying the players have to “commit and believe.”

As emotional as that 2011 Knoch playoff run was, the Knights did not get their storybook ending.

Maybe King’s return will place Freeport on that throne when this season is all said and done — a true storybook ending to a kid’s triumphant return to the sport he loves.

Nobody knows.

But it’s fun to think about.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle