Check out the recaps of all the action in Tuesday’s District One 4A semifinals. Photos provided courtesy of Keith Clemens Photography. Check back for a gallery of photos.
#7 NESHAMINY 2, #6 NORTH PENN 0
There were early signs this group of Neshaminy seniors had the chance to become something special on the pitch. It’s safe to say they’ve done just that.
“My assistant and I thought we had a pretty good group when they were sophomores,” coach Tom Foley said. “Even when they were sophomores, we said – ‘We’re going to really make some noise in the playoffs and maybe we can win a district championship, maybe we can go far in states.
“Last year, they really started buying into the pressure defense at the end of the year. We had a couple of unlucky breaks in the playoffs, but you could see they were really turning the corner, and they’ve done a great job pressuring. The boys thought they could do this since they were sophomores. I’m glad they have a chance to make one of those goals they set for themselves two years ago come true. We still have a tough game to play, but it always helps you’re going to play at home, so that’s great.”
The Redskins last advanced to the district title game in 2006 when they won the crown.
As for the game, the Redskins want opposing teams to know what they’re in for right off the bat.
Neshaminy brings pressure for 80 minutes by going after the ball wherever it is on the field and trying to bait opponents into mixing things up in its style. When that approach works, it leads to good things for the Redskins.
It took some time to get the right balance Tuesday, but once Neshaminy figured it out, the end result meant there would be a new district and state champion this fall.
“We came out a bit too excited, we were getting wired up with the ref’s calls and all that, so in the second half, we relaxed a lot more and played our game,” senior Gavin Rowan said. “We were able to open them up and eventually get our goal.”
Part of North Penn’s struggles to handle Neshaminy’s pressure came from who wasn’t on the field. Senior Josh Jones, a Louisville recruit and dominant midfield presence at 6-4, sat out Tuesday’s game due to a lower back injury.
Jones has been dealing with the issue for several weeks and was managing to play through it until this weekend, when the pain became too much to gut out. Without their target man, the Knights didn’t have anyone to play long balls, corners or free kicks or slow the game down with Jones also being good at keeping possession and moving the ball.
“Within the first five minutes, they had us playing their game, and we can go long when Josh is in there but without him, it’s really not our game,” North Penn coach Chris DePeppe said. “You lose the figurehead of your attack two days ago to injury, it’s tough to reconfigure and we ran into a buzzsaw.”
Jones’ absence had an obvious effect on the Knights, but the Redskins tried to not worry about who was or wasn’t on the field.
“We noticed it, but as soon as we did, we said ‘we’re not changing anything,'” Rowan said. “We’re not going to let one guy completely change the way we play in any game, we’re still going to come out and do our thing.”
“We went with the same game plan,” Foley said. “I feel bad for the kid – he couldn’t play. It was one of those things you worry more because sometimes teams have that next man up mentality and everyone lifts their game because the star player is out.
“We cautioned our kids about that. We told them we had to guard against being a little complacent and letting our guard down because he’s not playing. Sometimes it has the opposite effect.”
The first half was more ping-pong than soccer, with both teams cramming long balls up the middle of the field leading to sporadic bits of possession, a lot of fouls and little flow. Neshaminy knew it was doing too much too fast while the Knights felt they were out of their element especially with their main ball-winner sidelined.
“In the first half, I thought we were too cranked up,” Foley said. “We were giving a great effort, but our passes had way too much weight on them, we were knocking balls to the goalie when we should have been playing better passes, so it wasn’t an artistic first half, but we still played pretty good defense and didn’t give them any good looks in the first half. We could have played better, and that’s what we stressed at halftime – to settle down, play calmer, and things will get better for us.”
Right before the half, a reset off a corner led to a shot by Neshaminy’s Manny Weagba that Knights keeper Sawyer Meade had to push over the bar and the Redskins seemed to settle in over the break.
“We knew this would be a crazy game, we could have been knocked straight out but by halftime we realized we were definitely in this,” Rowan said. “We spread out, we used the wide part of the field, connected some passes and eventually got the first goal.”
Having figured out the pace, Neshaminy could then apply the effort.
“We definitely settled down in the second half,” Foley said. “We started to move the ball a little bit better. We continued to win balls in the midfield, which is our calling card.”
Roughly 10 minutes into the second half, a lot of hard work and some good timing helped the visiting side break through on the scoreboard.
Mike Albarran made a determined run up the right side, battling with a North Penn defender up the flank before playing a partially blocked ball high into the air across the box. Connor Steele got there first, heading the ball to the opposite post and toward Rowan.
Rowan, who played on the left wing, had noticed in the first half that Meade liked to come off his line for aerial balls and waited to make his move until the North Penn keeper was out of the goal. Once he was, Rowan was able to get up and head the ball off the frame and into the net.
“Most of our goals, they’re not one-two, pretty passes, it’s a lot of hard work,” Rowan said.
“That was nice to break the ice,” Foley said. “I know usually we get a goal up it’s going to be pretty difficult for the other team. They’re the defending state champions, so you never know. You can’t be content with one goal. We kept pressing.”
Neshaminy’s defense continued its strong run of play, limiting the Knights to few chances. Aside from a spell right before the opening goal, North Penn didn’t connect its usual short passes and any player who tried to go at the defense often found it tough going.
“Every single game, we press, press, press the whole time and won’t allow them to get past us,” said Albarran, who dropped to center back for the final spell. “We believe we’re going to out-work them, out-skill them, whatever it may be, we think we’re better. You have to fight for everything, it could be a ball going out in the corner and we’re still going after it“
Neshaminy doubled its lead with 10 minutes left off a textbook counter following a North Penn corner. Jose Rivera tracked down a long ball just past midfield and played it to Cole Jackson, who made a through pass to Rowan.
Rowan did the rest, spinning away from a back, then shielding the defender off while pulling the keeper out. His next touch slipped away from the keeper before he deposited the ball squarely in the middle of the goal.
“Gavin did this little pirouette at the top of the 18 and got himself free and went in on the goalie and tucked it in,” Foley said. “That was just a real professional goal, real calm, and he did a great job with it. Gavin has just been a monster for us the last handful of games. He’s been getting goals two at a time for us, and that’s great. You couldn’t ask for anything better.”
There was plenty of praise to go around after the win.
“Connor Steele has been just a man among boys,” Foley said. “He’s winning hard tackles, winning head balls. He’s starting to put people in motion – he’s done great. He’s one of those guys we gave him the hard sell on good solid defense, and he’s turned into a phenomenal defensive midfielder for us.
“On defense, Ryan Schoeneman and Lou Salmi did a terrific job as always. Justin Lykonov came off the bench for us today and played some solid minutes up top just running down balls, pressuring their defense. He just missed a couple times, but he gave us real solid minutes off the bench.
“Overall, I can’t say enough about our defense. We’ve had 11 shutouts in 14 games – that’s really pretty good. We said at the beginning of the year – ‘If you don’t give up goals, you’re not going to lose, ‘ and the guys really bought into it. We try to pressure, pressure, pressure all over the field. North Penn is a good team, but I don’t think we really gave them any clean looks at the goal tonight. I was super pleased with the way they played defensively, I was pleased with the way they settled down at halftime to take control of the game. Overall, it was a great effort by everybody who played today.”
Neshaminy (11-1-2, 6-0-2 SOL) will host #12 Pennridge in the district final on Thursday. The teams met two years ago in a first round district playoff game with the Rams coming out on top at Helman Field. North Penn closed out its season with a 10-3 record overall (8-2 SOL).
NESHAMINY 0 2 – 2
NORTH PENN 0 0 – 0
Goals: N – Gavin Rowan 2
#12 PENNRIDGE 1, #9 SPRING-FORD 0 (2 OT)
Entering Tuesday’s district semifinal at Spring-Ford, Ben Scary was a perfect 2-for-2 when it came to penalty kicks. He’s now 3-for-3, and his third one couldn’t have been much bigger, giving the upstart Rams a win and sending them into the program’s first ever district title game.
Although the game was on the line with just 6:34 remaining in the second OT, Scary was remarkably calm. At least until he made it.
“I looked over at my coach, and he’s telling me to just relax, and I think back to me at practice because I practice PKs every single practice,” Scary said. “It’s just repetition. I got back to there and pretend it’s just me and my goalie after practice just doing repetitions. I take a deep breath – I know where I’m putting it. I just have to do it the way I always do it, and I know it will work for me.
“(When it went in), it was the best feeling in the world. I’ve never felt anything better. I didn’t even know what to do with myself. I just wanted to hug all my teammates. It was great. It was the best thing ever. It was incredible.”
“Somebody is watching over us,” coach Pete Valimont said. “This is history. This is the first time Pennridge High School men’s soccer program has ever been in a district final.
“My junior year we played in the third place game when they only took three teams to states and we lost in the first round of states to Cumberland Valley, so I got to ride the bus and be a part of that and experience that, and that was in ’97-98. We’ve won some playoff games, we’ve gone to the quarterfinals. It’s frustrating because any other year we’d be in states right now, so now we’re fighting and clawing and finding a way to win.”
For the Rams, this is a remarkable journey that almost didn’t happen. Pennridge needed a non-league win over Hatboro-Horsham after their conference season ended to even make the district field of 16.
“It’s incredible really,” Scary said. “We had a meeting before we played Hatboro-Horsham when we thought our season was over. It was super depressing.
“Then we found out we had a game (with HH), and we knew – ‘All right, we have a second chance, we have to do something about it.’ We’re really playing our butts off every game, so it’s good.
“When we started this season, we knew we had a lot of potential. Going into that Hatboro-Horsham game when we got a second chance, we were like, ‘Okay, this is feasible.’ Then it became talk of actually getting to this point and making history for our men’s program.”
The game itself was relatively even and in the end came down to a penalty kick.
“It was back and forth where they had chances, we had chances,” Valimont said. “We started to dominate a little bit towards the end of regulation. We had some tough calls against us, some silly fouls on our part that led to some really dangerous restarts by them in overtime even, but they didn’t finish them.
“We were able to counter, get a ball knocked around, through the box once, it came back through. They didn’t clear it right, it hit a guy’s hand on the ground. Ben Scary is Ben Scary. He is a senior captain, a three-year varsity starter, and he just absolutely rifled it. There was no doubt about it.”
The Rams’ coach had high praise for his squad and lauded the efforts of several players.
“Our goalie, CJ Dimmick, probably had a game-saving save in the first half probably midway through,” Valimont said. “Their one forward cut us up a little bit and had a clean shot. CJ came out and made a leg save – I’m not sure if he made that his freshman year but this year he did. He was fantastic.
“Our two trees in the back – Shane Velez and Colin Monahan – just owned everything. They were up, they were fighting. These guys worked their butts off, and in front of them – Carlos Erazo and Ben Scary, our engines that run the show, and Jake Saville up top. Jake Saville really shined for us tonight. He did everything a target forward needs to do. He created a ton of chances. Jake got robbed a bit because two or three of his shots were unbelievable, and the goalie made life-saving saves.
“Our outside guy – Kevin Link – played fantastic tonight. Nicky Williams came off the bench to the point where he was cramping towards the end because he was playing so much. He was lights out in the middle, running all over, covering their guys and winning 50/50 balls.”
Valimont also had high praise for the Rams and specifically freshman goalie Logan Hyduke.
“They’re good,” the Rams coach said. “I’ll be honest – they were much better than I had accounted for. They had talent all over the field.
“Their goalie deserves potentially player of the match because he stood on his head. He was fantastic, and he’s a freshman.”
“They were probably one of the best teams we’ve played this season,” Scary said. “They could move the ball really well, and their freshman goalkeeper – we figured he would be a weak spot, but oh my god, he was incredible. Some of the saves he was making were crazy, but I know it’s going to go in at some point – it has to.
“I keep having faith in my guys. They had some incredible shots, and there’s nothing else we can do. I had to keep having faith in them, and I know at some point, we’ll get one in.”
Pennridge (10-5, 5-5 SOL) will travel to #7 Neshaminy for Thursday’s District One 4A title game.
EXTRA SHOTS: Tuesday’s win was significant for the Pennridge men’s soccer program, but it had special significant to Valimont. “For me personally, for my family, for my wife for all the time I’m away – this legitimizes what I’ve been doing, the time and effort I put into this program, the summer league, the winter league,” the Rams’ coach said. For my boys to see their dad’s got a team that’s doing so well – they might not understand now, but when they get older they can watch some of this, and I can share with them some of these stories and experiences. And just for me as a coach to say I’ve been there – I’ve been to that big game, I’ve experienced it, I’ve gotten my guys ready. For me as a Pennridge alumni, it’s such a proud moment with these guys performing. They’re not just here and going through the motions. We’re actually finishing out games.”
PENNRIDGE 0-0-0-1 1
SPRING-FORD 0-0-0-0 0
Goals: P – Ben Scary.
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