Abington fell to Conestoga 4-3 in Saturday’s District 1 4A title game. Andrew Robinson recaps all the action.
District 1 4A final
No. 2 Conestoga 4, No. 5 Abington 3
With his team encircled around him, Abington coach Isaac Pitkow didn’t mince his words.
The first-year head coach was adamant that what had happened in the second half of Saturday’s District 1 4A title match against Conestoga would hurt and should hurt for a few days. A match that had gone all in their favor for 45 minutes had suddenly turned and what seemed like it was going to end in an evening of celebration saw the Ghosts on the wrong side of a stunning comeback.
Silver linings are hard to find, especially after a crushing loss with a trophy on the line, but if there’s one thing the Ghosts could pull from Saturday was that they had been there before and it had ended in a much better way.
“It’s tough in these moments where we’ve been here before,” Pitkow said. “We’ve now been here three of the last four years – 2023, 2025 and 2026 – and lost all three times, which is tough. Just like we’ve done the last couple of years and last year obviously we went on to win it all, we’ve got to turn the page quickly to Wednesday.”
Abington came out flying on Saturday at Garnet Valley. With a strong wind swirling around the field and decidedly making its push from one end of the pitch to the other, the second-seeded Pioneers opted to play against the wind in the first 40 minutes.
It seemed to play right into Abington’s favor. Within five minutes, the SOL Liberty’s champion had drawn a throw-in deep in Conestoga’s end, and senior Carter Shannon was able to hurl one of his trademark throws into the box where it found its way to Brennan Ewer for a tight finish and early lead.
“The wind was crazy,” Pitkow said as, fittingly, a gust of wind blew across the field. “We had seven goals scored in the game and six of them were scored on that goal with the wind blowing this way.”
Abington almost seemed propelled with the wind at its back, the Ghosts going up 2-0 with 28:17 left in the first half on a great individual effort by senior Jaza Vasquez. The technically gifted forward was able to slice by a defender, settle the ball and tuck it home for an advantage the Ghosts would carry into halftime.
They didn’t slow down going into half or coming out of it. Less than a minute into the second half, Abington pounced to go up 3-0. Owen Gesing made a great run as Kyle Kretschman drove toward the goal, the senior selected to play in next month’s All-American Game lofting a cross in front of goal that the crashing Gesing met with a one-time finish.
As Gesing celebrated with a flip in the corner, the Abington crowd roared.
The remainder of the day would belong to the Pioneers.
Luke Steines scored seven minutes later to get the Pioneers on the board. Over the next seven minutes, Conestoga would go from trailing by three to a tie game, the second seed using the wind and its skill on corner kicks to capitalize on set pieces.
“They are phenomenal on set pieces,” Pitkow said. “We scouted them heavily on their corner kicks, they’re so good on corners. They’re very, very efficient on them, they’ve got these big bodies they put in the box they have (Daniel Poltaraus) who serves from the left side with an in-swinger then (Luke Stienes) serves from the right side with an in-swinger, they put great deliveries to the big bodies in the box.”
Drew Lucot scored the first, crashing the far post on a service by Poltaraus then running all the way down the field to celebrate in front of the Conestoga student section. On the next corner, Stienes played it out toward the top of the box where Poltaraus came in for a first-touch shot that weaved through the legs of everyone for the equalizer.
“They have some very, very good players who showed up in the big moments,” Pitkow said. “In terms of our defending, do I feel like we could have done anything better? Yeah, we could have marked better, dealt with the set pieces better but you’ve got to credit them. They have some very, very good players who showed up in the second half.”
Pikow noted there are no timeouts in soccer, so there was no way for him to stop the game and get his guys together. He thought the captains did a good job of trying to keep the composure on the field after the first two goals, but the Ghosts just couldn’t seem to slow down the Pioneers.
Conestoga would grab the winner with 11:02 left when Ben Frischmann re-directed a low cross to the far corner.
Abington didn’t quit, the Ghosts were able to get a couple of decent looks in the box through the rest of regulation, but Conestoga was able to clear every one of them.
“It was a wave of pressure they put us under,” Pikow said. “We fought back well, I was happy with how we fought back, we got the ball in their half a couple times and had a couple chances we maybe could have squeaked one in the end there on one or two of those but I have to credit them, that’s a really, really good team.”
Scoring Summary
1st Half
A – Brennan Ewer
A – Jaza Vasquez
2nd Half
A – Owen Gesing (Kyle Kretschman)
C – Luke Steines
C – Drew Lucot
C – Daniel Poltaraus
C – Ben Frischmann
Up next: Abington will return to action on Wednesday when it hosts District 3 runner-up Lower Dauphin to begin its PIAA Class 4A title defense.
ABINGTON 2 1 – 3
CONESTOGA 0 4 – 4
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