Photo by Cody Nespor Wheeling Park’s Luke Dunaway, left, races Brooke’s Evan Urso, right, to the ball during play Thursday.

WHEELING — Head coach Mario Julian wasn’t entirely pleased with his Wheeling Park boys’ soccer team’s performance Thursday afternoon. However, when push comes to shove a win is a win and that is just what the Patriots recorded over visiting Northern Panhandle rival Brooke.

Junior forward Tresz McLeod provided the offense with a hat trick, including a pair of goals off corner kicks, and sophomore keeper Gavin Border and the Park defense did the rest, recording their fifth shutout of the young campaign, as the Patriots earned a hard-fought 3-0 victory over the Bruins at the Wheeling Park Athletic Sports Complex.

The victory moves Julian’s squad to 4-1-2 on the season while coach Joe Pepe’s Bruins drop to 3-3-1. Both teams will host Hedgesville in their next outing with Brooke hosting the Eagles today and Wheeling Park entertaining on Saturday.

“It wasn’t very pretty (Thursday), but in the end we had a clean sheet not allowing any goals and we outscored our opponent,” Julian said. “I thought our sophomore keeper did a real good job keeping them off the board, but we need to keep working hard and there is still a lot to improve on.”

Brooke senior keeper Jeremy Gilchrist, who batted away 11 shots in the contest, kept the Patriots off the board for the 18:24, including a pair of very nice stops, one on a rocket in the box and the other on a corner kick, before the hosts finally dented the scoreboard.

What turned out to be the game-winner came on a corner kick from senior midfielder Mike Blanton that McLeod was able to get a good jump on before burying the header into the back of the net for a 1-0 score.

The Bruins had a pair of scoring opportunities late in the opening half, however Border was up to the task and Wheeling Park took its slim 1-0 advantage to the break.

Another good save by Border two minutes into the second half kept the score the same before a McLeod shot slid through Gilchrist’s hands just 2:40 into the half for an insurance goal and 2-0 count.

Both teams watched the other’s keeper record nice saves along the way over the second 40 minutes of play before McLeod finished the scoring, and the hat trick, off of another corner kick with just 20 seconds remaining in the contest.

“We really struggled passing and holding on to the ball,” Julian added. I don’t teach playing defense with the lead, I want to keep attacking but for some reason we kind of settled in on the defensive end after getting the lead. They have a nice midfield, and they did a nice job defensively also.”

Pepe was proud of his young team and how they managed to stay in the contest.

“I thought we went head-to-head with them,” Pepe said. “We start three seniors and the rest are all underclassmen and I am very proud of their effort (Thursday). This is good experience for them.

“We played better in the second half, which we always seem to do, and I felt like we came out and were very competitive. Our defense did a good job, we had a couple of bad breaks, but we just could not find the back of the net on offense.

“It is still a long road ahead, but we play a very competitive schedule. Our goal is to play the best competition we can to be ready to be at our best in the end.”

Border finished with seven saves on the night.