By Alex Frazier
A sea of red breached the dam, flooding the field at Tulpehocken High School and swamping the white-clad Central Bucks East players who had just made school history by defeating Central Dauphin 2-1 to make their first appearance in the Class AAA state championship game Saturday at Hersheypark Stadium.
“They’re the best cheering section in the state,” said senior midfielder Lee Sandquist. “There’s nothing stopping those guys.”
The Central Bucks School District provided two busses to transport the rabid fans to the game.
“They’ve come to every game,” said Sandquist. “They’re the most dedicated group of guys I’ve ever known. They’ve really helped us. You can hear them anywhere on the field. They help us through the game. Seeing them in the stands is great.”
Central Dauphin had a couple of chances to get on the scoreboard in the first 20 minutes or so of the first half.
East keeper Shane Donovan broke up one of them beating the Rams’ Austin Shott to a 50/50 ball in the 15th minute. Three minutes later, Central Dauphin’s Colin Watford nicked the crossbar on a corner kick.
At the 6:24 mark, Shott put the Rams on the board, taking a pass from teammate Eric Lavery and beating Donovan from about 12 yards out.
True to form, the Patriots relied on their patented set pieces to get back in the game and eventually win it.
With just 23.3 seconds left in the half, coach Mike Gorni sent Chris Kneeshaw to take a throw-in on the left side of the field about 25 yards out.
Kneeshaw tossed a rocket in front of the goal to Sandquist, who flicked it into the far side of the net.
“He has a great throw, and I knew it was going to go deep into the box, so I just positioned myself in the right spot and had the flick into the far bar,” said Sandquist. “I knew it was a good header. I didn’t know if it was going to the far bar and someone else was going to head it in. I was hoping for the best.”
The timing couldn’t have been any better. Instead of going into the half down a goal, the Patriots were even up.
“It was vital to get that goal before halftime because we could go into the second half needing just one more goal to be going to the state final,” said Lindquist, who has now scored four of East’s eight state playoff goals.
The Patriots had the wind at their backs in the second half, but Central Dauphin nearly negated that eight minutes into the half.
Shott got control of the ball behind the East defense and sidestepped a charge by Donovan. But with a wide-open goal staring him in the face, he fired the ball into the outside of the net.
In the 19th minute, Central Dauphin keeper Brad Sumski came up with two quick saves in succession, but two minutes later at the 17:41 mark, junior forward Miguel Diaz buried the game winner.
It started once again on a throw-in, this time from Kenny Haug, who tossed the ball from the right sideline.
“I saw the ball bouncing over the defender, and I wanted to capitalize so I stepped in between the defender and the goalkeeper and I put my head in and I got it in,” said Diaz. “I just knew I had to play hard. They were playing pretty good so we had to capitalize on anything we could.”
Ironically, Central Dauphin coach Gregg Davis knew what to expect.
“All practice yesterday we worked on defending throw-ins into the box,” he said. “For some reason what happened yesterday didn’t translate into what happened today because we didn’t defend them very well.”
“We practice set pieces every practice,” said Lindquist, “and as you can tell, it paid off.”
Gorni was also impressed with the offense his team generated besides the set-piece chances.
“We had a lot of quality shots from the flow of play tonight,” he said. “Their keeper came up big a couple of times.”
Donovan came up real big himself with the game on the line with just under 10 minutes to play when he made two saves on a flurry of three Central Dauphin shots.
With the Rams pressing late, the East defense held on and started cheering as a Ram shot flew over the top of the goal with just 23 seconds left.
Then the celebration began in earnest.
“We made history tonight,” said Lindquist. “I’m ecstatic.”
Saturday at 5 p.m. at Hersheypark Stadium, the Patriots will take on District Three fourth place team Hempfield, a 2-0 winner over Pittsburgh Central Catholic in the other state semifinal.
“We know a lot about them,” said Gorni. “We’ve seen them. They’re a very good team, just their 3-0 result with Pennsbury is impressive.”
East has scored eight goals in the playoffs and given up one, while Hempfield has scored seven and given up none.
“We’re not worried about anyone,” said Lindquist. “It will be a tough game. We’ll have to come out playing our best soccer of the season.”
1-3 Central Bucks East 2, 3-2 Central Dauphin 1
Shots: CBE 12, CD 11
Saves: Shane Donovan (CBE) 4, Brad Sumski (CD) 8
Corners: CBE 4, CD 6
Fouls: CBE 3, CD 9
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