photo by: Nick Henthorn

The Wheeling Park Patriots celebrate a goal during a match vs. Morgantown earlier in the season. The Patriots will face Woodrow Wilson in a state semifinal game at noon Thursday at the YMCA Paul Cline Memorial Youth Sports Complex in Beckley.

WHEELING – Multiple players on this year’s Wheeling Park boys soccer squad have experienced the stakes of state tournament play, with the Patriots making a trip to Beckley the season before last. But none of the Park boys had been alive for the last Patriots state championship, which came in 2001.

This Thursday is a chance to revisit the state tournament stage at Beckley’s YMCA Paul Cline Memorial Youth Sports Complex, and a chance to reset the clock in their trophy hunt.

Wheeling Park, seeded No. 3 in the final four of Class AAA, will face No. 2 Woodrow Wilson on Thursday at noon in a state semifinal match that can’t come soon enough for the Patriots.

“Last time we were the fourth seed, and we played Greenbrier East who were the one seed,” Wheeling Park head coach Mario Julian said in an interview Tuesday. “That game was tied all the way until three minutes and 44 seconds remaining in regulation where we conceded a second goal to lose the game. The kids have been champing at the bit for another opportunity since.”

Players like Tresz McLeod and Gavin Border were sophomores, while Wilson Hanna and Sam Rockey were freshmen on the field in that game.

The Wheeling Park faithful have gotten more familiar with those names by now, the quartet composing parts of a talented Patriots team that had been ranked as the top AAA team in the state at points in the season. On their way to the state tournament, Park defeated Morgantown for the sectional championship and University for the regional championship.

Those victories bring them into conflict with Woodrow Wilson on Thursday. The Patriots and Flying Eagles have met once before, a regular season match on Oct. 19 which Park won 2-1.

The Flying Eagles attack is led by junior Coby Dillon and sophomore Ali Farghaly, while their defense has suffocated opponents- Bridgeport, Huntington, Hurricane and Park are the only teams to score two goals against Woodrow Wilson this season. The Flying Eagles are 2-2 in those games. In all other contests, Woodrow Wilson has allowed one or none in the scoring column.

They have 13 shutouts. Junior Bryson Doss is the man in-goal for the stingy Eagles.

“Woodrow has a very complete team,” Julian said. They have good players at every level- goalie, defense, midfield and forwards. We’re very familiar with them, we played them two or three weeks ago and it was a very close game. Either team, I feel, could have won that game. Their style of play is very good soccer. They possess the ball, they’ve got speed, just high-quality players at every position.”

As for the Patriots, their high-powered offense is led by McLeod (38 goals, second in state) and Hanna (27 goals).

“History will tell you that the teams who come out on top, in any sport, their best players perform at their best,” Julian said. “What I mean by that is, they lead by not only playing good soccer but by showing their teammates the proper way to win.”

The Patriots are much more than their two top scorers though. McLeod and Ike Aderholt each have 18 assists to lead the team. Gavin Border has snagged 76 saves this season, and the Patriots as a whole have allowed 0.74 goals per game while scoring 4.91 per game.

“Our goalie Gavin Border had 11 shutouts this year, he is very good, one of the better goalies throughout West Virginia,” Julian began. “He had a shutout in the sectional final in a very highly contested match. Made some key saves. Our defense has two centerbacks who are seniors, who are very high-quality in Max Seibert and Josh Albrecht. Our midfield, we have one of the best midfielders throughout the state of West Virginia. Ike Aderholt is a young man who plays extremely high-level soccer, and some younger guys in there as well like Sam Rockey and Graham Loy, to go along with our offense. It’s a very nice mixture because we’ve got seniors and we’ve got underclassmen. The seniors are going to lead by example this week and the younger kids are eager and willing to follow.”

The Patriots departed from Wheeling High School with a send-off from the community at 10 a.m. Wednesday.