To view action photos of the Souderton/Downingtown West game, visit the photo gallery at the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/
By Alex Frazier
Both Suburban One teams are reputed for their defenses.
But both Central Bucks East and Souderton gave up goals in the District One Class AAA semifinals to fall short of their bid for a district championship.
Playing at West Chester East, the No. 8 Patriots took No. 4 Unionville to double overtime before giving up the lone goal of the game.
“It was a big angle shot that went through a lot of bodies and into the far corner,” said East coach Mike Gorni.
East goalie Shane Donovan stopped nine of 15 shots, one on a brilliant save against Unionville’s national team forward Chris Summerville.
East had some chances of its own. One came on a set piece resulting in a shot form five yards out that sailed over the top of the crossbar.
“They had more possessions,” said Gorni, “but we had some good opportunities but we couldn’t finish them.”
East was playing without long-throwing defender Matt MacPherson, who was sidelined with a stomach virus.
While MacPherson is expected back for Saturday’s consolation game against Souderton, the Patriots will be short another defender Dan Christiansen, who was given two yellow cards and must sit out the game.
Gorni isn’t too concerned. As he said, “Both teams are going to states. It’s more important to stay healthy.”
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Souderton’s defense is so good the Indians aren’t used to playing from behind, but that’s just what happened. And early.
Downingtown’s Scott Seifert took a pass from Ryan Knight and fired a shot off keeper Dave Giannini’s foot that ricocheted over the Souderton keeper and into the goal just 4:25 into the game.
“You give up an early goal against them and it took all the confidence out of us,” said coach Tom Quintois. “They were clearly the better team tonight. They were playing on all cylinders and we couldn’t get our rhythm going. It was an uphill battle, and that was a tough way to start a game for us.”
As if that wasn’t enough to rock the Indians’ confidence, West struck again just over a minute later.Seifert crossed a ball from the right side to a wide-open Pat Taylor, who blasted the ball inside the left post.
“All year whenever we’ve been down a goal early, it’s been hard for us to work back,” said senior midfielder A.J. Androkites. “Today was no different.”
Souderton had a hard time controlling play in the midfield. The Whippets were able to gain possession and thread passes ahead to the fast forwards.
“Their midfields did a really great job finding the seams and making those open runs for the forwards,” said Androkites. “Our defense had a hard time following runners. They were great all season. I guess today was a fluke.”
Souderton’s best scoring chance in the first half came when the Big Red’s Alex Muir lost a footrace to a 50/50 ball that West national goalkeeper Bobby Rosato won.
“When you’re down a goal and you have a national team goalkeeper at the goal at the other end, it’s hard to fight back,” said Androkites. “We did get a lot of opportunities, but we couldn’t capitalize on any.”
Souderton keeper Dave Giannini, meanwhile, kept the Indians in the game with a diving save on a shot by Seifert with two minutes to the intermission.
Giannini beat Seifert to another ball eight minutes into the second half but collided with a teammate and had to come out for nine minutes to have a scalp wound bandaged.
“He got fooled on the first one,” said Quintois. “He’s been great all year long. He’s deserving of a better result tonight with the amount of saves he made.”Souderton had another good chance on Ian Smith’s header with 13 minutes left in the second half. But Downingtown put the nail in the coffin following a Souderton corner kick.
With the Big red pushed up, the Whippets’ Seifert sent an outlet pass up field to Nate Doyle, who outran Scott Jablonski and fired a low shot into the left side past Giannini.
“We thought it was important to play with a lead tonight so it didn’t end up being a 0-0 game,” said Downingtown coach John Hatt. “Once we did that, it made them come out of what they normally do. Fortunately, we were able to catch a couple behind them. The third goal took a lot of pressure off.
“We don’t score a lot of goals either. I expected a 1-0 game. I thought it would be a close game, and for the most part it was. We just finished a couple of chances. Most of the game was played in the midfield and that’s what I expected.”
“In the second half, we played a little bit better,” said Quintois, “but we didn’t deserve to win tonight.”
Saturday, C.B. East and Souderton will match up for the third time this year in the consolation game for third place at Souderton at 5 p.m. Souderton won both regular season games 1-0.
“We’re still a confident group,” said Quintois. “We’ll be back. We’re looking forward to a consolation game. Beating East a third time will be difficult.”
“We’re disappointed we couldn’t win our district, but we’re looking forward to the future and making a run in states,” said Androkites.
The championship game at 7:15 at Souderton pitting Unionville against Downingtown West is a mirror of the consolation. The two teams will also be playing each other for the third time this year, and Unionville won both by 1-0 scores, the last for the Ches-Mont championship. Downingtown is the defending district and state champion.
Downingtown West (17-2-4) 3, Souderton (15-3-4) 0
Goals: Scott Seifert (D), Pat Taylor (D), Nate Doyle (D)
Assists: Ryan Knight (D), Seifert (D) 2
Shots: Downingtown West 10, Souderton 6
Saves: Bobby Rosato (D) 2, Dave Giannini (S) 4, Tyler Afflerbach (S) 0
Fouls: Downingtown West 9, Souderton 6
Yellow cards: Bobby Sutcliff (D)
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