Check out the recaps for SOL boys’ soccer teams in action. CR North/CB South photos provided courtesy of John Gleeson. PW/New Hope-Solebury photos courtesy of Karla Donohoe. Check back for a gallery of both games.
SOL Patriot/Colonial Crossover
Council Rock South 2, Central Bucks West 1 (2OT)
A Frankie Rafferty goal off a corner kick two minutes into the second overtime period lifted Council Rock South to a thrilling 2-1 victory over Central Bucks West on Tuesday and put a damper on West’s Senior Night festivities.
“It was a hard-fought game, and I’m happy to get all 3 points at a tough venue on West’s Senior Night,” said South coach Alan Nicholl. “My defense was particularly sharp tonight, dealing with an entire season’s worth of long balls.
“Isaac Burenga, Stepan Kovalov, Andrew Lindros, and Garrett Cohen made terrific adjustments to West’s big-ball style and we stayed with the game plan.”
Christian Evans (Ryan Horst assist) put the hosts on the board with 22 minutes left in the second half. Ronan Harding (Josh Nikolevski assist) tied it for South 10 minutes later to force the extra sessions.
Rafferty (Nikolevski assist) scored the winner early in the second overtime period.
“We grew up a lot tonight and hopefully we can use that experience and belief to grab more points in this relentless period in our schedule,” Nicholl said.
Council Rock South (6-3, 4-3 SOL) hosts North Penn at 3:30 Thursday. West (1-6-1, 1-5-1) hosts Bensalem at 7 pm Thursday.
Council Rock South 0-1-0-1 2
Central Bucks West 0-1-0-0 1
Central Bucks South 2, Council Rock North 1
Central Bucks South coach Joe Coscia couldn’t have been happier with the team effort it took for the Titans to pull out a 2-1 victory over Council Rock North in Tuesday’s crossover matchup.
He had a lengthy list of players who stood out in securing the win.
“Logan Campbell had a great game, for sure,” Coscia said. “Eric Green played an absolutely spectacular match up until his injury. I’m hoping it will be a pretty quick recovery. Aidan Davis had a great game, Thijs Popma had a spectacular game. Obviously, AJ (Peev) and Sean (Rieber), who had our goals, and Andre Medl really helped to lock things down in the middle of the field.
“I was really pleased with the number of guys off my bench that I got into the game. Everyone stepped up and played really well. It was another good match, another good victory. The team’s in high spirits. I’m hoping we can carry it through and build a little ‘W’ streak that really solidifies us for later in the season.”
South opened the scoring just 37 seconds into the game on Peev’s goal. Rieber made it 2-0 in the 32nd minute of the first half.
“AJ took a low, hard shot,” Coscia said. “I feel bad for the North goalkeeper because I think the grass scored more so than anything else. It looked like he had it covered, and it just took a weird bounce and popped right over him.
“(Rieber’s) was another great combination play, played right through their back line, he took a touch and hit a low hard shot past their goalkeeper. There was nothing the goalie could have done about that one. We had one of the best halves we’ve played so far.”
North made it a 2-1 game midway through the second half.
“We had some chances to seal the deal in the second half. Another two crossbars hit, a couple other shots that were near misses, and North did a nice job of blocking some shots and closing down opportunities as well,” Coscia said. “Later in the match, there was a tough no call when AJ was 1v1 against their last defender. The guy took him down and no call by the referee. It did get pretty physical toward the end. North has a really nice team. I have a lot of respect for (coach) Joe Stackhouse. It was a really well-contested match.”
Coscia also credited his goalkeeper for his outstanding efforts in picking up the win.
“Both teams had their chances, and Aydan (Horniak) made some really big saves and was an excellent kind of sweeper keeper for us on their short field,” Coscia said. “They were putting long balls over the top, and he collected a bunch at the top of the box. Our defense did a good job of shutting their shooters down, playing the ball back to Aydan with their heads so he could pick it up easily.”
South improves to 5-2-1 overall, 4-2-1 Colonial Division, and visits Harry S Truman at 3:30 pm Wednesday. North drops to 3-4-1, 3-3-1 Patriot Division, and continues its run through the Central Bucks School District when it visits CB East at 3:30 pm Thursday.
Central Bucks South 2-0 2
Council Rock North 0-1 1
Central Bucks East 1, Bensalem 0
Central Bucks East coach Josh Isaacsohn felt as though his team could have scored four or five goals in a dominant first half of play against Bensalem on Tuesday. East goalkeeper Casey Prajzner ensured that the Patriots would only need one. The freshman backstop posted the shutout as the visiting Patriots earned a 1-0 victory.
“Casey came up really big when it mattered and did fantastic in net,” Isaacsohn said. “The first half seemed to be tilted a bit in our favor and I felt we should have put away at least 3 to 4 more goals but couldn’t quite find the net.”
Owen Wills netted the only goal of the game (Nick Knepp assist) in the 10th minute.
“It was a beautiful shot from distance that stunned the goalkeeper and the defense,” Isaacsohn said. “Owen and Nick both had great games and helped lock down the middle of the field when we needed it most. Bensalem dug in and played a solid second half and came close a few times, but our back line stood tall.”
The Owls missed a penalty kick that could have tied the game and the lone East goal held up.
“We’re still missing three, four starters today,” said Bensalem coach Rob Brown. “It’s tough not having so many guys.”
East (5-2-2 overall, 3-1-2 Colonial Division) hosts Council Rock North at 4 pm Thursday. Bensalem (2-6-1, 2-4-0 Patriot Division) visits Central Bucks West at 7 pm Thursday.
Central Bucks East 1-0 1
Bensalem 0-0 0
Pennridge 5, Pennsbury 1
Aiden Castle finished with a hat trick and Jake Saville finished with a goal and three assists as Pennridge rolled to its sixth straight win, a 5-1 victory over Pennsbury in Tuesday’s crossover matchup.
Castle staked the Rams out to their 2-0 halftime lead with a goal less than 2 minutes into the game on a Saville setup, then added a second (Nicky Williams assist) 10 minutes later.
Saville scored from Jared Hess to make it a 3-0 count about five minutes into the second half. Pennsbury cut the lead to 3-1 with 16 minutes remaining before Saville set up Castle and Gabe Gerhart for two more insurance goals for the Rams.
“Aiden Castle and Jake Saville did a great job, and Nicky Williams in the middle really worked his butt off all over the place,” said Pennridge coach Pete Valimont. “Pat Fannon really worked well today, working for balls and whatnot. Those four really came to play today.
“It was just a really good offensive effort all the way around right from the start. Some of these schools are having long drives. Their coach (Tom Stoddart) is fantastic, and Pennsbury is a strong program. I just think this was a case we came out really ready to play from the get-go. We jumped on them, and we were able to keep it going. It was a great game for us.”
The Rams move to 7-1-1 overall (5-1-1 Colonial Division) and will look to run their winning streak to a lucky seven when they visit Neshaminy at 3:30 pm Thursday. Pennsbury (3-3-1 Patriot Division) will host Souderton on Thursday.
Pennridge 2-3 5
Pennsbury 0-1 1
North Penn 2, Neshaminy 0
Jimmy Perrin is off to a pretty impressive start this season. The North Penn forward netted both Knight goals, bringing his total on the young season to five, as North Penn blanked Neshaminy 2-0 in Tuesday’s crossover game.
Perrin scored one goal in each half, with the second one coming just 18 seconds before the final whistle.
“His first goal was off a Nate Kim cross and Jimmy made a long run into the box and took it cleanly first time with his left foot,” North Penn coach Chris DePeppe said. “I’ve been hounding him to shoot with his left, so he enjoyed that one.
“The goal in the second half was a solo effort after a little tightrope dribbling along the endline.”
Gabe Kemp notched the shutout in goal for North Penn, with help from the outstanding efforts of the Knights’ back line of Ryan Mindick, Nate Kim, Brian Scott, Ben Barbosa, and Jake Myers. DePeppe also praised the work of Hunter Stites, Alex Stewart, and Jovani Gonzalez.
“This was a solid effort against a Neshaminy team that has some talent and plenty of athleticism,” DePeppe said. “They came out with energy in each half and took it to us for 10 minutes, but once we sorted it out, I thought we had control of the match. We need to correct some miscues and do more with our set pieces, but I’m liking the combination play and the tempo.”
North Penn improves to 5-2-0 overall, 4-2-0 Colonial Division. The Knights visit Council Rock South at 3:30 pm Thursday. Neshaminy (4-3-1, 3-3-1 Patriot Division) hosts Pennridge at 3:30 pm Thursday.
Neshaminy 0-0 0
North Penn 1-1 2
SOL Liberty/Freedom Crossover
Wissahickon 4, Upper Moreland 0
After a rocky start to the season, Wissahickon has found its footing. The Trojans’ fortunes—and their place in the Liberty Division standings—are rapidly rising.
Wissahickon’s hot streak continued on Tuesday. After a 0-3-1 start to the season, the Trojans won their third straight game and fourth in the last five games in a 4-0 victory over Upper Moreland.
“We changed a few things up,” said Wissahickon coach Stuart Malcolm. “We set ourselves up in a way that we want to play and a way that we think we’ll have success in putting a lot more pressure on our opponents and not giving up too many opportunities, which is the way you want to go, and hopefully, you’ll put the ball in the net more times than the other team and you’ll get a result.
“In the last three games, we were able to get the results. I said to them today, ‘Winning’s an attitude. You got a good one on Friday and a good one on Wednesday, so you now need to keep it going. There’s no point in doing that and then taking your foot off.’”
The Trojans led 1-0 at halftime before powering in three more goals in the second frame, but it was the game’s final goal that might was the most celebrated.
Senior backup goalkeeper Joey Connolly had the opportunity to play striker and scored the first goal of his varsity career, much to the delight of his teammates.
“We had a few minutes to go, and we’ve been struggling with injuries—our bench is a little small,” Malcolm said. “It was 3-0 at the time, and I asked our back-up goalkeeper, ‘Would you like to go in the goal or would you like to go on the field.’ He chose to go in as a striker, and Joey got the fourth goal.
“All the players were pretty excited. I’m sure their bench was wondering what was going on because there was three minutes left to go, our bench is going crazy, and the parents on the other side were pretty excited for him, but it was just the fact that it was someone that doesn’t get on the field. Here he gets a chance and scores a nice goal.”
Julian Memis put the Trojans on the scoreboard in the first half on a goal off a penalty kick.
“Upper Moreland had some opportunities, and we got a couple of opportunities early and weren’t fortunate enough to score,” Malcolm said. “Once we got the penalty kick, we really shut them down pretty well for the remainder of the half. In the second half, we did a really nice job of not giving too many opportunities and getting the goals necessary to kill the game, so it was good.”
Junior Bobby Graeffe made it 2-0 in the 60th minute on his first varsity goal, and Sam Grossberg added a goal seven minutes later. Memis, Ryan Berger, and Michael Om recorded one assist each. Aditya Shah recorded his second shutout of the season in goal.
“We’ve been banging on the door the last week or so, and finally we managed to put a complete game together, so it was good for the boys,” Malcolm said. “They’re starting to really understand what each of their roles is, and it was fun to watch today. Hopefully, we can keep it going.”
The streaking Trojans (4-4-0 overall, 4-3-0 Liberty Division) will face another tough test when they host Lower Moreland at 3:30 pm Friday. The Lions will be looking to bounce back from their first defeat of the season. Upper Moreland (4-2-3, 2-2-3 Freedom Division) visits Upper Dublin at 3:30 pm Thursday.
Wissahickon 1-3 4
Upper Moreland 0-0 0
Hatboro-Horsham 2, Lower Moreland 1
It can be difficult to put a tough loss behind you.
It can be even more difficult when that defeat happens in the final minute of the second overtime period.
Add to that the fact that Hatboro-Horsham had to come back the very next day to take on previously undefeated Lower Moreland, and you’ve got the perfect opportunity for a gut-check and a signature bounce-back victory.
Despite falling behind 1-0 in the first half, the Hatters responded with a pair of second-half goals to hand the Lions their first loss of the season and notch a key 2-1 victory.
“Lower Moreland was undefeated coming into the game, so we knew they were going to be a challenge,” said HH coach Kyle McGrath. “They tied Abington and they’ve gotten some good results in their league. They play a good brand of soccer.
“We started a little bit sluggish because we had a game yesterday. We just told the guys at halftime, we need to capitalize on opportunities, and we need to go and press when we see the opportunity to press. We were able to do that and put them under a little bit more pressure in the second half, turned them over in their half of the field. That’s what created the free kick for us on the first goal. Once we scored the first goal, you could see the energy level of the group just raise up and we were able to go on and get the winner.”
It was Caleb Hudson who knotted the score at 1-1 on the free kick from about 20 yards out in the 45th minute.
“He came up from center back,” McGrath said. “We always tell the guys to put two players on the ball, and he just hit a perfect shot into the far post side panel off a restart, put the ball around the wall and really gave us some momentum at the beginning of the second half.”
Tommy Harmon assisted on Nick Katherine’s goal in the 63rd minute to put the Hatters ahead.
“We were able to capitalize on an opportunity Nick created for us for the second goal,” McGrath said. “Tommy Harmon flicked the ball in the midfield, and Nick ran onto it. We’ve been stressing to the guys, anytime if you’re 20, 25 yards in, if you have an opportunity to shoot, let’s look to shoot, and Nick did that. The defender reached out to try and block it, and he deflected it, and fortunately for us, it kind of looped up over the goalkeeper’s head into the far post for the game-winner.”
Noah Schlosser made 5 saves in recording the win for the Hatters, who saw players step up all over the field to put the sting of the previous day’s game behind them and earn a huge victory.
“Jake Freedman was all over the field for us as a center midfielder. He was really, really good today,” McGrath said. “With playing back-to-back games, we rotated a lot of guys in. We got some big minutes from Enrico Romano. Nick played almost the full game today after playing the full game yesterday. I’m just super happy with his play.”
The Hatters improve to 6-2-0 overall, 5-2-0 Liberty Division, and look to keep up the momentum when they travel to Cheltenham for a 3:30 pm Thursday matchup. Lower Moreland (4-1-2, 4-1-2 Freedom Division) will look to bounce back when it visits Wissahickon at 3:30 pm Friday.
Hatboro-Horsham 0-2 2
Lower Moreland 1-0 1
Abington 4, Cheltenham 0
Abington entered Tuesday’s game against neighborhood rival Cheltenham without a single blemish on its record. The Panthers entered the contest with just one win in six games this season.
For nearly a period-and-a-half, the two teams battled to a scoreless stalemate, but the skill and experience of Abington made the difference as the Ghosts netted four unanswered goals in the final 25 minutes to pull away and earn a much-closer-than-it-looked 4-0 win.
“The boys played really well for 55, 60 minutes today and then we fell apart,” said Cheltenham coach Bill Tonkin. “Hopefully we can build on the really good play we had moving forward. We have made some changes to the lineup that seemed to make a difference today. Hopefully that continues. We proved that we can play with the better teams today. Now we just have to believe in ourselves that we can beat them.”
Abington coach Randy Garber also praised the efforts of the opposition, particularly Panther keeper Jacob Sterman.
“Cheltenham worked extremely hard,” Garber said. “We didn’t play very smart, but they made it difficult to get behind them. Their goalkeeper was outstanding. He kept them in the game. I don’t think Kevin (Kretschman), our goalkeeper, saved a ball. The first half a shot was taken, but we knocked everything down the middle, and (Sterman) was so active in the box. Anything knocked into the box, he went out and got and made it difficult. He was absolutely outstanding.”
Liam Hartman scored the first two goals for Abington, the first on a header off a Pat Capone corner kick 15 minutes into the second half, then Hartman followed it up 5 minutes later with his second goal.
Thiago Danielle made it 3-0 about 5 minutes later, then Danielle added a second goal to cap the scoring.
“It was one of those games in the Abington/Cheltenham rivalry. It’s always difficult no matter what the records are,” Garber said. “It’s one of those games that’s there for the taking. If they had scored first, it could have been a different score, but the 4-0 score doesn’t tell you the story. Everyone sees 4-0 and thinks it was an easy game, but we didn’t score until the 55th minute. They were playing so great, and when the first goal gets scored, they get disappointed and it takes a little wind out of their sails.”
Abington improves to 7-0-1 overall, 6-0-1 Liberty Division. The Ghosts put their unbeaten season on the line next when they visit New Hope-Solebury at 3:30 pm Thursday. Cheltenham (1-6-0, 0-6-0 Freedom Division) will try to build off the positives of this game when the Panthers host Hatboro-Horsham at 3:30 pm Thursday.
Cheltenham 0-0 0
Abington 0-4 4
William Tennent 1, Upper Dublin 0
Patrick Corley earned his first shutout of the season as William Tennent eked out a 1-0 victory over a hard-charging Upper Dublin squad on Tuesday.
“Upper Dublin was a fantastic team with quality all over the field,” said Tennent coach Nick D’Andrea. “We had to defend so hard to hold on for the win as they had numerous chances at the end. This was a typical SOL game that could’ve gone either way.”
Drew Rafferty won a scramble in the box and slid the ball past the Cardinal keeper about 15 minutes into the second half for the game’s only goal. D’Andrea also praised the efforts of center back Henry Guzman and center mid Jimmy Manning for their efforts.
He also lauded the efforts of the opposition.
“Upper Dublin has some very solid players,” D’Andrea said. “Tommy Clayton, Campbell Heckler, Miles Bondi, along with Daniel Gorman in the back.”
William Tennent improves to 3-4-2 overall (3-3-1 Freedom Division) and visits Quakertown at 3:30 pm Thursday. Upper Dublin (3-5-0, 3-4-0 Liberty Division) looks to rebound when it visits Upper Moreland at 3:30 pm Thursday.
Upper Dublin 0-0 0
William Tennent 0-1 1
Plymouth Whitemarsh 5, New Hope-Solebury 3
Mason Clatterbuck and Jarred Rutman each scored two goals as Plymouth Whitemarsh jumped out to a 3-0 halftime lead and held off a second-half charge to take a 5-3 victory over New Hope Solebury in Tuesday’s crossover game.
Zach House added one goal for the Colonials.
“New Hope played very well, they never gave up and had some very impressive moments,” PW coach Rich Kessler said. “They battled back after being down 3-0 to make the game close.”
The Colonials improve to 4-4-0 overall, 4-3-0 Liberty Division, and host Springfield Twp at 3:30 pm Thursday. New Hope-Solebury remains winless at 0-8-0, 0-6-0 Freedom Division and hosts undefeated Abington at 3:30 pm Thursday.
Plymouth Whitemarsh 3-2 5
New Hope-Solebury 0-3 3
Quakertown at Springfield Twp, ppd.
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