Photo by Cody Nespor Wheeling Park midfielder Manny Juanez gets a shot on goal during Wednesday’s OVAC 5A semifinal.

WHEELING — The Wheeling Park boys soccer team will play for an OVAC championship.

The No. 2 seed Patriots advanced to Saturday’s OVAC Class 5A championship by virtue of a hard-fought 3-1 victory over No. 4 seed Morgantown Wednesday evening inside Wheeling Island Stadium.

“We’re always excited to play in the OVAC tournament, it’s a big part of soccer in this area,” Park coach Marion Julian said after the win. “Last week was a tough week for us, we lost to two really good teams. The kids really focused in practice on Monday and Tuesday to really bring some aggression to the game, play a little bit smarter and compete for each other. I thought (Wednesday) was great.”

Park (8-3-3) and Morgantown (6-5-3) battled tooth-and-nail in a first half that ultimately ended with no goals scored despite several quality chances for both sides.

“I don’t expect anything less from (Morgantown) Coach (Sam) Snyder,” Julian said. “His teams are always well organized and they know how to win. We knew that it was going to be a good game and we knew that they were going to give us everything that they had.”

The first really good look for either side came at the 20-minute mark when Park’s Tresz McLeod sent a beautiful pass to Wilson Hanna, who put a strong shot on net. Morgantown goalie Tyler Crites turned the shot away, but the ball found the foot of Park’s Mike Blanton, who shot too high, up and over the net.

Blanton got another quality shot off eight minutes later off of a penalty kick, but it was again stopped by Crites.

The Mohigans’ best look of the half came on a penalty kick that required Park goalkeeper Gavin Border to dive to his left in order to corral it.

“We really had a great first half, they worked hard,” Julian said. “The results weren’t there, but I told them at halftime, ‘that half’s good, keep working hard and you’ll get rewarded for the work.'”

As if Julian could see into the future, hard work paying off is exactly how the game’s first goal was scored.

In the 13th minute of the second half, Crites stopped a Park shot on goal, but could not corral it. The ball was slowly rolling to the right of the net and seemed destined to roll out of bounds until Park’s Hanna ran to save it and gain control. He worked wide to the boundary and passed it to Blanton, who sent a perfect crossing pass to McLeod, who headed it into the net for a 1-0 lead.

“That’s the effort that we’ve been talking about,” Julian said. “The play never stops and it keeps going for 80 minutes. You’ve just got to keep working that entire time and that effort goal really got us started in that second half.”

Park’s next goal was not necessarily a product of hard work, but it was scored by a player who had worked hard all game in junior midfielder Manny Juanez.

A Park corner kick in the 27th minute ricochted out to Juanez at midfield, who put in in the back of the net with a strong one-time kick.

“That was Manny’s best game of the year,” Julian noted. “I feel like I challenged him this week and he responded the way that a good player responds.

“He was struggling on the offensive side (this season), he’s always been good defensively. He didn’t do the work in between the 50-yard line and the other team’s goal and (Wednesday) he did. We’re a whole different team when we’re controlling the midfield.”

The Patriots made it 3-0 when McLeod had a breakaway down the left side of the field and passed back to the middle to Samuel Rockey for an easy tap-in goal.

“I thought that Tresz up top was just a handful for them, he attracted two or three of their guys almost every time and it finally paid off so some of the other guys to pitch in and get some goals,” Julian said.

Morgantown got on the board with 2:14 to play when Aidan Stire scored on a penalty kick.

Border made five stops in net for the Patriots while Crites turned away 14 shots in a valiant effort for the Mohigans.

Wheeling Park will play for a trophy in their home stadium Saturday morning at 10 a.m. against University. The Hawks advanced to the championship after defeating Steubenville in an epic 10-round shootout Wednesday.

GIRLS SOCCER

Morgantown Tops Park

MORGANTOWN — While the boys played in Wheeling, both schools’ girls teams took to the pitch in Morgantown as the Mohigans won 2-1 to advance to Saturday’s OVAC 5A Championship.

Merritt Delk scored unassisted on a free kick for Park.