Wheeling Park Back In Familiar Turf After OVAC Semifinal Victory
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WHEELING -- After four straight years of OVAC titles, the Wheeling Park boys soccer team will have the opportunity to make it five in a row after a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Steubenville on the turf of Wheeling Island Stadium on Tuesday.
Wheeling Park will compete at St. Clairsville High School in the OVAC 5A boys championship, set for 12:30 p.m., which will follow the girls' 5A championship.
The Patriots are the No. 2 seed in OVAC 5A, and will face No. 1 Beaver Local for the title. The Beavers defeated No. 4 John Marshall, 9-3.
"Kids are working really hard," Wheeling Park head coach Mario Julian said after the game. "Every year we look for an opportunity to play in the OVAC. It’s an exciting in-season tournament, and we’ve had success the last few years, and we knew Steubenville was going to be tough. They’re always tough. I thought we played a really good second half. We moved the ball really well, had a lot of shots. Their goalie, he came up big on quite a few shots. But overall, we’re very pleased to be moving on, and it’s nice beating a really tough opponent in Steubenville."
Tuesday was a rematch of a regular-season matchup between the two teams exactly one week beforehand, which ended up with a like score, a 2-1 Park win.
"We’re a young team, only playing two seniors," Steubenville head coach Greg Bowers said. "They showed some fight through the game. We didn’t give up, we just made a couple mistakes."
Wheeling Park finished with 11 shots on goal Tuesday against No. 3 Big Red's five.
The first goal of the game came early, in the ninth minute on a long shot from Graham Loy that couldn't have found a better landing spot, fitting just out of reach of Steubenville keeper JJ Lamantia and into the corner of the net. Miles Rockey recorded the assist for Park.
"He hit it pretty well and it skipped on the wet surface, still went just perfectly into the corner," Julian said of the score. "It would have been a really, really tough save, even if it didn’t skip."
Plenty of plays went Lamantia's way throughout Tuesday, though. The sophomore made impressive plays minutes apart, first a diving stop on a fireball from straightaway in the 11th minute, then Lamantia denied a happy ending to an otherwise immaculate sequence in the 15th minute, Brayden Hedges lofting a great crosser that Isaac Welling thumped toward the goal with a mid-air header-- deflected out of bounds by Lamantia. The Big Red stopper recorded another save on the ensuing corner kick.
Wheeling Park was able to extend their lead just before halftime, in the 38th minute. Tristin Gonzalez clobbered a pristine crosser from Noah Lloyd, who lofted the pass from as deep in the corner as you can get. Gonzalez pounded the pass out of midair from right in front of the goal for a hotshot score and a 2-0 halftime lead.
"We work on that a lot in practice, getting the ball down to the end lines and getting it crossed," Julian said. "The timing was really good on that one. It was a pretty nice finish too."
Wheeling Park nearly made it 3-0 in the 69th minute. An angled shot from Aiden McCroskey was deflected by Lamantia and loudly clanged off a goalpost, a near-miss.
Steubenville got on the board in the 74th minute, profiting off of a direct kick from about 10 yards away from Park's goal. The direct kick was repelled by a Patriot defender's foot-- but right into the waiting leg of Thomas Henry, who banged home a point-blank score to put Big Red on the board.
"Landon Bowers put a nice shot on goal," Bowers said. "They saved off the line. Thomas was in the right spot. You know, we just had to not give up a goal in the last three minutes of the first half, and then maybe that’s a game-tying goal instead of a goal just getting us back into it."
Steubenville will face John Marshall in a consolation game on Saturday.
Julian is excited for his team to be in contention for the title once again.
"It’s always going to be a challenge in that championship," Julian said. "Wheeling Park’s looking for their fifth in a row, so we’re gonna go as hard as we can to bring another one home."