Four SOL boys’ soccer team advanced to Tuesday's next round. To view photos of the CB East/Methacton, PW/Lower Merion and North Penn/Rustin games, please visit the Photo Gallery.
#3 CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 1, #20 METHACTON 0 (OT)
Evan Vare was the ultimate finisher for the Patriots during the regular season, and the junior forward is back at it in the postseason, sending a rocket into the net in the 92nd minute for the game winner.
The play began with a throw-in into the wind by senior captain Booker Farrior that found its way into a crowd in the box where J.R. Eisold got a touch on it, flicking it to Vare. The rest is history, and the Patriots are in Tuesday’s quarterfinals where they will face Plymouth Whitemarsh as the magical season continues for a Patriot squad with just two seniors in its starting lineup.
“At this point, I think we’re kind of a dangerous animal because we are just going into everything with the expectation to play as hard as we can for every single match, which is even different than just playing game by game,” coach Mike Gorni said.
The game got off to a slow start offensively for both squads.
“We were trying to basically walk it in, and we didn’t take our chances,” said senior captain Julian Klokner said. “We had our chances to shoot, but we just didn’t take them.”
Things changed in the second half as the Patriots began to seize control. Only a highlight reel save by Methacton’s Vinny Tasca on a shot by Klokner three minutes into the second half kept the Patriots off the scoreboard. A shot by Brian Gilligan ricocheted off the crossbar, and 15 minutes into the half, Vare blew by a pair of defenders only to watch his shot go just wide.
The Warriors withstood every Patriot surge, and the stage was set for overtime.
“The first seven or eight minutes, we had two really good shot opportunities,” Gorni said. “One we took and missed and the other we didn’t take.
“The first half was pretty even. I don’t think either team had a lot of great opportunities. The second half I thought we were the better team. The majority of the pressure was in this half. It certainly wasn’t overwhelming, but we had the ball down here more.”
The Warriors came out strong in OT, and it was Farrior clearing the ball out of harm’s way near the goal in the opening minutes. Then it was Austin Prime’s turn to shine, and the junior keeper delivered, making a brilliant save of his own.
“That was a great save,” Klokner said. “He saw it late and just made a huge jumping save to palm it. He didn’t give up a rebound.”
“It’s plays like that that keep us in the game,” Farrior said.
With 3:42 remaining in the first overtime, Vare brought an end to the drama with a goal for the game winner.
“We had so much pressure,” Klokner said. “(Farrior) put the long throw, we got the flick, and it came back to us. Evan hit a nice rocket to the upper corner.”
The win kept the Patriots’ season alive. On Tuesday, East (17-2, 13-1 SOL) will face fifth-seeded Plymouth Whitemarsh in a quarterfinal game.
“It’s always a lot of pressure when you’re in these playoff games, but it’s our senior year, so there’s that added pressure,” Klokner said. “You don’t want it to be your last game.”
“It’s a lot of pressure,” Farrior said. “One bad moment, and our season’s done forever.”
Methacton 0-0-0 0
Central Bucks East 0-0-1 1
#3 WISSAHICKON 6, #14 SPRINGFIELD (DELCO) 1
In a second round that featured two ties and a shootout, the Trojans’ rout of the Cougars seemed strangely out of place.
“At this stage of the season, games are generally pretty tight,” coach Stuart Malcolm said. “We were concerned because they say a team that has a bye – sometimes it’s not a good thing because they haven’t played for a while. For those teams, it was an added couple of days (because of the miscalculations with the seedings).
“We can do all we can in practice to try and simulate different things and try and keep the tempo up and the focus. It’s a credit to our guys – they came out, and they got a couple of goals early.”
It took no time at all for the Cougars to realize they had no answer for Cole Kropnick, who scored a pair of early goals to give the Trojans a 2-0 lead. Then came a play that all but put the game out of reach for Springfield.
“Cole was on a breakaway, and the goalkeeper came out and basically leveled him in the box,” Malcolm said. “(The keeper) got a straight red.
“From there, we just tried to keep our focus. They were pretty rattled, and we were happy with the goal situation but concerned with the way the game developed to that point. There was a lot of physical play. Cole had nasty scratches on his neck and face. He’d been on the field 20 minutes, but he’d been on the receiving end of some physical play. We decided at that point he was done. If we needed another goal we’d put him back in. He actually only played 20 minutes of the game.”
With Kropnick on the sidelines, Devon Memis converted the penalty kick to put the Trojans on top 3-0, and 10 minutes later, the Trojans were on the receiving end of another penalty kick after Memis was leveled in the box. Sam Hunt buried the PK, and the Trojans led 4-0 heading into the intermission.
The Cougars got on the scoreboard midway the second half on a goal by Mike Wallace, but the Trojans had an immediate answer, using goals by Alex Tappen and Alex Chiodo-Ortiz for the 6-1 final.
Contributing assists for the Trojans were Memis, Hunt, Shane Fallen and Henry Zhong.
“They knocked the ball around pretty well for having 10 (players),” Malcolm said of the Cougars. “It’s going to look very good, as it were on paper. I’m not sure if it would have been 11-on-11 it would have finished 6-1, but I think we established in the first 20 minutes of the game with the three goals with 11 players on the field – we kind of won the game 11-on-11.”
The lopsided win allowed Malcolm to play everyone on his bench.
“Obviously, the result is very pleasing to get through to the next round,” the Trojans’ coach said. “We didn’t come out flat. We came out with the intention to make it a game. They had a game a couple of days before, and they were more playoff ready than we were.
“As coaches, that’s what you’d like to see the response from the players – all credit to them. Basically, in the first 20 minutes, the game for all intents and purposes was won. We had to see the game out and be smart in terms of what we were doing, stay focused and not do anything silly ourselves, and our players did that.
“It’s a good positive start. At this stage in the season, the seeds are just numbers. Everyone is going to come to play.”
The Trojans (17-2, 12-2 SOL) will face sixth-seeded West Chester Henderson in Tuesday’s quarterfinal round. Henderson defeated 11th-seeded Kennett 2-1.
Springfield (Delco) 0-1 1
Wissahickon 4-2 6
#5 PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 2, #21 LOWER MERION 1
By Dave Conard for SuburbanOneSports.com
PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH—It's always tough to be the first to tread where no one has gone before.
Moses trekking up Mount Sinai, Christopher Columbus sailing west without knowing how far he would get before falling off the Earth, Neil Armstrong, well, you probably get the point.
While it will probably never be studied in a history class or read about in any textbook, for the 17 seniors that comprise most of Plymouth Whitemarsh's soccer team, Saturday's 2-1 PIAA District One Play off win over Lower Merion may eclipse the aforementioned events in their memories.
Midway through a physical first half, a penalty kick awarded for a push inside the box, put the Colonials in the unenviable position of having to dig out of a 1-0 hole to Central League powerhouse Lower Merion, which seemed very content to waste as much time off the clock as they could on every possession they had.
At the 17:47 mark, David Reina placed a free kick from the sideline, with the precision of surgeon, squarely within striking range of senior Alex Bilodeau, who headed the ball into the corner of the net, knotting the game at one and shifting the momentum in the hosts favor.
“David did such a great job there,” said Bilodeau, who would duplicate the feat on a corner kick for the game-winning goal. “We work together so well. He puts the ball right in front of me and in the perfect position to head it in.
“That was such a huge play for us because it got our crowd and everyone back into the game.”
The several hundred students that packed the north side of the grandstands may have thought about texting the tower at Philadelphia International Airport and alerting the planes that generally fly overhead of Colonials Field to be aware of the punts that senior goalkeeper Shane Smith was launching.
On three occasions, with a slight tailwind, in the first half alone, punts off the foot of Smith traveled more than 70 yards in the air with ridiculous hang time, but it was the quick hands of Smith that may have continued PW’s season with the biggest play of the year so far.
With just over 38 minutes to play and the score still deadlocked at one, Smith anticipated perfectly Aces sniper Gian-Luca Hail’s move and stoned the Lower Merion senior on a point blank scoring chance from less than ten yards away to preserve the momentum and prevent damage on the scoreboard.
“I just watched for him to make his first power step,” said Smith. ”Then it was making sure that I didn't just get a piece of it but to have control of it. We had really taken over the energy of the game, and I wanted to make sure we kept it going. That was pretty big for us.”
“Having Shane boom punts like he did today and make saves like that just fires us up even more,” added Bilodeau. “We knew we had to take care of business today and did. It's great to see teams watch the ball up so high and coming down. They don't even want to get in front of that, which is huge for us.”
Prior to this season, no other PW boys soccer had ever won a district playoff game until the Colonials ended Abington's season with a 3-1 win Thursday night, Now following a deliberate, businesslike come-from-behind win over the Aces, PW (18-2, 13-1 SOL) will again be taking another step on pristine ground as the Colonials will now travel Doylestown to take on the number four seeded Patriots, who advanced with a 1-0 overtime win over Methacton. A berth in the PIAA state playoffs is on the line.
“We are not even close to being done,” said Smith. “This team and these guys have worked so hard to get where we are. We can't wait to play the next ‘big name’ soccer school that shows up on our schedule.”
Lower Merion 1-0 1
Plymouth Whitemarsh 1-1 2
#1 UNIONVILLE 2, #17 PENNSBURY 2 (Unionville 6-5 PKs)
The Falcons – who battled the Indians to a 2-2 tie after regulation and two overtime periods – saw their season come to a heartbreaking end when they fell in the second set of penalty kicks.
“I’m very disappointed for my players,” coach Tom Stoddart said. “We were a very good team. I felt that we were as good as any of the teams I’ve had, including our two teams that went to states, and I felt we had a run in us, but it didn’t go our way today.”
Although the Falcons extended the district’s top-seeded team to the limit, Stoddart knows his team could have done more.
“They’re undefeated, and I don’t want to take anything away from them, but we were the better team today,” the Falcons’ coach said. “They were just scrappy.
“I think anyone who saw the game would come away saying we played the better match.”
The Indians got on the scoreboard at the nine-minute mark, and although the Falcons had the better of play after that, they still trailed 1-0 at the intermission.
“Their keeper is very good,” Stoddart said.
The two teams combined for three goals in the opening seven minutes of the second half. Alex Kardos (Zach Lobasso assist) scored the equalizer, and a minute later, Unionville’s Sam Alfonsi scored the go-ahead. Again Kardos answered, again using a Lobasso assist to knot the score 2-2.
“That kid (Alfonsi) played most of the game with a separated shoulder,” Stoddart said. “That’s the kind of team they are – they have a lot of guts.”
The Falcons dominated the overtime periods but could not find the net. In penalty kicks, Falcon keeper Eric Gagliardi had saves on the Indians’ first and third PKs, but Unionville’s keeper stopped the Falcons’ second and third, and the two teams were deadlocked 3-3 after one round of five. The Indians won it in the second round.
Stoddart bids farewell to eight seniors, including Kardos and Gagliardi.
“Because of the illnesses and the stuff we had going on at the beginning of the season, we went 24 players deep, so I have 16 returners that played major varsity time,” the Falcons’ coach said. “But it’s hard.”
Kardos, who scored both goals, finished the season with 13 goals.
“I texted him and said that of all the things he has done for the team this year as far as leadership – he really was the motor that got us where we are,” Stoddart said. “I really feel that singlehandedly, he’s probably had the best season of any player in our six years that we’ve had.”
The Falcons have produced some excellent soccer players, including Kyle McDonald, the starting center midfielder for Penn State’s nationally-ranked squad, and Jimmy Ockford, who is playing professionally for the New York Cosmos.
“I’m not saying Alex is necessarily better than them, but as far as soup to nuts what he meant to this team, I couldn’t have asked for anything more,” Stoddart said.
The Falcons closed out the year with a 13-5-2 record (11-3 SOL National Conference).
Pennsbury 0-2-0-0 2
Unionville 1-1-0-0 2
#15 GREAT VALLEY 3, #2 NESHAMINY 2 (OT)
First round byes have not been especially kind to the Redskins, who saw their season come to an end in the second round for the second time in as many years. Both years they received opening round byes, and this year had nine days between games.
The Patriots got on the scoreboard first and took a 1-0 lead into halftime. The Redskins evened the score on a Dylan McDonald goal only to watch the Patriots go back on top 2-1. Kevin Goetz (Kenny Herrmann assist) knotted the score with 10 minutes remaining. It took the Patriots just over a minute to win it in overtime on a goal by Kyle Hoops.
The Redskins closed out the season with a 16-3 record overall and a 14-0 mark in league play to capture the SOL National Conference crown.
Great Valley 1-1-1 3
Neshaminy 0-2-0 2
#10 WEST CHESTER RUSTIN 1, #7 NORTH PENN 0
Boys AA
#4 SPRINGFIELD (MONTCO) 3, #5 BISHOP SHANAHAN 1
The Spartans found themselves staring at a 1-0 halftime deficit in Thursday’s district opener, but they recuperated to seize control of the game in the second half, scoring three unanswered goals for the convincing win.
“Every player stepped up and made an impact in the second half,” coach Dan Meder said.
Scoring goals for the Spartans were Zach Harley, Corey Cottone (Sasha McVeagh assist) and Igor McVeagh (Ethan Steinberg).
The Spartans (10-6-2, 6-6-2 SOL) will play top-seeded Holy Ghost in Tuesday’s semifinal at Souderton Area High School at 5:30 p.m.
Bishop Shanahan 1-0 1
Springfield (Montco) 0-3 3
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